Playing Catch-up

It's almost end of May and we are still cold and wet. It's been raining like it's Seattle. We maybe get one or two dry days in a week, the rest it just rains, pours, drizzles ..... oh and sometimes snows too. UGH. We are in serious down right foul mood.

Managed to attend a few agility shows. USDAA was at the end April during the three perfectly dry days. What luck.

Grommit's still got it

Riot rocked her very first USDAA show, scoring a Q in Steeplechase. This was also her first outdoor show and of course it was all new. But, she was on it.

She takes her job very seriously

Solid as a rock. This was our Steeplechase run, round 1

She simply smoked it; efficient where needed, extended and like a speeding bullet where she could. I couldn't believe it and was on cloud 9. She even posted faster time than Banshee!!!

We followed that awesome weekend with couple days of AKC agility where we tried some more contacts (HAH!) and jumpers.


She knocked one bar in each of the jumpers runs, so no Qs, but again her times were phenomenal. I have to actually calculate yards/sec to have some frame of reference, since, quite frankly there are no dogs in her jump height that even come close. So it's hard to gauge. Most dogs (with the exception of, ... oh ... 3-4) in Novice/Open are pretty sluggish and a lot have been there forever too without ever advancing, or so it seems.

She wasn't very impressed with the chute

Next we followed with another USDAA trial in Boise, ID with a very small trial and all three, Grommit, Banshee and Riot rocked it.
Grommit steady as always, I entered him only in two runs per day, he's ten afterall, but he loved every one of them and he was woofing all the way through all the courses. Banshee and he took 1st and 2nd in Perf, Steeplechase finals earning some small cash and a vanilla shake afterwards :-)

Banshee styling as always

Riot also got a second Q in Steeplechase with a wild Round 1, then a spectacularly cute off course into a tunnel in Round 2, which I could do nothing about, but watch her bounce from one tunnel to the off course one in a split second. This girl leaves no room for error, she means business every split second on the course! I love it, she keeps me on my toes.

Similarly this last weekend at a one day AKC show we entered, I bobbled sending her to a jump and had to step into the pocket to push out, which caught me flat footed and consequently had absolutely no time to get out of there for the following straight line of jumps (ugh, those open straight courses ...) and she ended up reading my being behind as deceleration and naturally curled into me, taking an off course jump. Again, split second decision. This girl takes no shit from anyone :-) SHE GOES!

I love it. We will eventually grow into a solid team at full speed. She and I have a lot of learning and understanding of each other to do. What a trip!!!!
I would take a speeding bullet on a course any day, even if it means those unplanned 'technical difficulties' than a dog that you could jog through a course with and maybe have a sip of coffee while you wait for it to come around ;-) He he he, almost like my ol' man Grommie. Although he still demands running. No walking involved.

Timing, timing, timing is what I need to get. Oh and RUNNING !!!!!
Guess it's not just the dog that should be agile in this sport ;-)

Which is why I am still continuing on this steady, slow but determined weight loss. Hopefully my knees will thank me too.
Now if only the weather would cooperate so that we all could start some conditioning, because trying to do sprints on wet grass screams twisted ankles and bashed knees.
And of course, I always worry dogs will pull something and get all gimpy again.

We're all itching to get out and looking out the window right now, today evening is not going to be the day either. Guess it's going to be tricks night again.

Again awesome photos courtesy of Carol Clawson as well as Randy Gaines.
Thank you, they are priceless.