No Q's for us today...

He needed a little help (aka a hand to block him!!) with the weaves in the jumpers course, and then in standard, he decided going under the tire would be better than going through tire! One of our favorite photographers was there, so I'm hoping that he got a shot of Brad going under the tire. I know it's silly wanting a pic of the bad stuff, but I bet it was cute! Then, when he got on the teeter, he gave me a good woo-woo, so I'm hoping there's a shot of that, too. Other than those two mishaps, he had beautiful runs today.

Saturday Update...

Well, I figured out why B nearly fell off the dog walk. I was telling someone else, and I realized, that right at that point, I was slowing down to get ready for the table as the next obstacle. I think he lost his footing when he looked back at me! I'll have to remember that for next time! I'm always afraid he's going to fly right off that table!

Anyway, he did not care for having 12 weave poles in Open standard today. No Q on our first try! Our novice jumpers was beautiful, and we got a Q and our title. So tomorrow, we're Open in both.

On a side note, I attempted to run a friend's golden retriever. Notice I used the word "attempted"!! He did the first three obstacles just fine, but then followed the dog who was leaving the ring from the previous run! It was another dog from our class that had run right before us, so Neptune just followed him right out! We got a good laugh as I ran after him. Reminded me of another trial, with a dog I know....hmmm....wonder who that could be?!

Friday Trial Update...

We got our first AKC title! We got our third Q in Novice Standard, so we're moved up to Open for tomorrow. We didn't get our jumpers, but it was mostly a good run. He had an off course right at the start (took wrong 2nd jump, but it was a trap), but the rest was beautiful. He nearly slipped off the dog walk, but managed to get his footing and stay on. At one point, I know at least one foot was not on the walk!! I was very nervous! Kind of puts things in perspective, because he was at the top. I'm much more happy that he didn't fall and get hurt than I am with the Q and the title.

AKC Trial This Weekend!

We've got a three day AKC trial this weekend, that is close to home! YEA! No driving all over the place!! We're still in Novice, so we don't run till 5:00 or 6:00 tonight. All we need is one more Q in each class and we'll move up to Open.

The trial in a different kind of venue than usual. This is a dog training facility rather than a rodeo barn, so we have floor instead of dirt. The last time we ran there, B and I crashed into each other that resulted in limping on my part for the rest of the day! Now that was just a fun day, WAY back when we were just getting started. I don't think we had even done a trial at that point.

I don't know if I'll get any videos. Phil has been gone so much that we've lost our videographer. I will the camera, though, just in case.

Nice long walk...

Brad and I made it for our walk tonight. Five miles! We met the cutest little girl schnauzer, Olive, who invited us to a schnauzer meet up. Unfortunately, it's Saturday morning and I'm working at my second job (trying to save up for Champs!!). Soaking my poor aching feet now. I wonder if B's feet get sore?

And the training begins....

And, no, I'm not talking about regular ol' agility training! I decided that if I'm going to run longer courses, for five days in a row, I'd better hit the gym. Seriously. I met with a trainer today to work on legs. I just hope I can walk tomorrow! I'm supposed to meet with him again next Monday, but may have to delay that depending on whether our agility class is at 7:00 or 8:00 next week. We meet at different times depending on if we're doing stations or courses. If we do stations, both Monday classes come at 7:00 and work at the same time. For courses, we split into two, and our class is the later one.

And for tomorrow's workout? Just a simple walk with B-dog...if I can get out of bed. :)

AKC trial

Last weekend, we did one day of AKC in Ft. Worth, and Brad got Q's in both standard and jumpers with weaves! He did very well on both runs. We have 3 days of AKC coming up in June, but then it looks like we'll take a break from trialing to save up to go to Champs. In the meantime, we'll enjoy lots of evening walks and practices to stay in shape!

Back to Class...finally

We haven't been to real class in a month! The last time we went, it had been canceled without me knowing, so we were all by ourselves. It was fun, but not class. The last couple of weeks, I've gotten stuck late at work, and with my allergies, was just too tired to go. I'm ready today, though! The weather is even decent (just a little hot and humid for my tastes).

What?!? A Weekend with no Agility?!

What will we do? It's nice to sleep in, at least. We'll be doing one day of AKC in May, but that's still a few weeks away. I have found a fun dog event in Austin between now and then to go to. Then, in June, we'll do three days of AKC. That trial will just be 20 minutes or so away, so that will be nice.

We have to get our vacation plans figured out, so I will know what trial to enter over the summer. We were planning to go to Northern Michigan for the 4th, and if we do that, we'll miss the only NADAC trial in Texas before the Champs entry deadline. There are two trials that are sort of on the way to Michigan the weekend of June 27. One is in Iowa, and one is in Ohio. We're leaning toward the Iowa one right now. It's indoors. I'm a little nervous about doing an outdoor trial. The only hold up I guess, is that Phil is probably going to be doing some Guard training through June 30 here in Texas. To make it all work, Brad and I would have to go to Iowa on our own, do the trial, and then have Phil fly to Chicago or Milwaukee. So many things to consider....better go check all the travel websites to see current flight prices. :)

Weekend Updates

We did two runs last night. We got a Q in hoopers and nearly had one in touch n go, until someone flew off the A-frame without making his contact.

This morning, we didn't Q in chances (what a shock!), but it was first so at least we ran some of our energy out. Since Phil is with me, I had take Brad out to play while I worked one of the other classes. It paid off, because Braddock did really well on jumpers. It was one of the best jumpers runs he's ever done actually. Next, we'll have weavers, then 2 rounds of regular and we'll finish up with tunnelers.

Well, weavers didn't go too well, but tunnelers was a blast! We got a Q and came in 3rd. We've done one regular run, and it was clean so hopefully it was fast enough. The weaves took a couple of tries. I'm hoping he will realize there will only be 6 weaves in the next one and then maybe he won't be so stressed out about them. .

We ended up getting first in the first regular run, but didn't Q on the last one. He was cute doing it though and even got a few laughs. He got a little obsessed with one of the tunnels. :)

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Sunday

Today went really fast and really well. We had 5 runs. It started with regular. I think the open course was easier than our novice course, but we managed a Q! It was actually a very nice run. Then we had tunnelers, in which we got a Q as well. Chances didn't go as well. Oh well. We did our jumpers run right at the standard course time, so another Q there. Last we had touch n go and even though I got lost for a second or two, we pulled out a Q.

The most exciting thing of the weekend was that we won a prize for coming in third in a high in trial contest the club had! The club had a high in trial from this trial combined with the trial they had back in February. We won an awesome ribbon that is taller than B and a very cool rolling bag. I'll get some pictures posted soon.

It was a super fun weekend. We're pretty bummed that we won't have another NADAC trial until July, but AKC will keep us in shape until then.

Mixed Emotions...

I just found out today that the lifetime points requirement for Champs has been lowered to 200. On one hand, I'm quite happy, as entering regular is back within reach. However, I also wonder if that's even something we should try for. We haven't been incredibly successful at regular lately. I was reading some posts on the NADAC group list about teams that crack at Champs. I don't want to do that! If we get to do anything at Champs, I just want to be there to take it all in. I'm lining up purple outfits (which will include toes, nails, shirts, earrings...maybe even hair) and just want to go and have a great time. We have a trial this weekend where we have 3 regular runs in novice. Then, we won't have any NADAC until the summer, so I suppose I have plenty of time to think about it.

Chances

We just got our official results from the weekend and we did Q in Chances! Woohoo! That's Q number 4...only took about 24 runs to get there!

This may ruin the whole point of the blog...

I had a lot of thinking time on the way back yesterday. I knew there was no way to get the 250 points in regular at this point, without taking off more days of work to go to either KS or NM. Before this last trial, I had kind of promised myself that if we didn't make some progress, it would be time to accept that entering the full Champs schedule wasn't in the plans for us. Of course, I think I told myself that before our first trial in Feb, our second trial in Feb, and our first trial in March! But I meant it this time!

For the next trial, I've asked to be moved back into Novice in regular and weavers. I think that will help, and I may not even sign up again for weavers for a while. He really does seem to stress when he sees them in a trial, even though he does them fine in class. Not great, but fine.

Wherever Brad and I are as a team right now, it is a bumpy part, but I think that's probably natural. I'm sure as we continue to work together, we will manage to fix our problem areas. He is quite strong willed and independent, so maybe he's trying to prove how grown up he is to me! Children do rebel at times, right?!

I will go ahead and try to get in for the four specials classes we're eligible for: tunnelers, hoopers, jumpers, and touch n go. I don't know if we'll get in since we won't be entering everything, but it's worth a shot. I would still love to go just to see it! It sounds so fun from the NADAC message board. All the purple! The amazing teams!

I've enjoyed doing this blog, though, so expect more posts even though we aren't exactly making a run for Champs anymore. Besides, there's always the Champs in Missouri in 2011...

Sunday

We already ran jumpers and it went about like yesterday, so I really wasn't sure if it was in time. When I went to check the scores, I didn't see a Q and thought it was very strange that he was over by the exact same amount of time as he was last night. Wait...that was the page from last night! He made it this morning with half a second to spare! We have our Open jumpers title!

We will have a LONG wait now through regular since we've moved down to Novice. I was planning to scratch chances so we could head back, but on the map it looks pretty easy. I guess I will see how the day goes before I decide if we will stay or head back home after regular.

We didn't Q on either of the regular runs. On the first, we went just nearly a second over on time (darn weaves!). On the second, he did the weaves great, but passed a hoop. When I called him back to do it, he went right through it-backwards, of course! Everything else on both runs was great. Since we're still here, I decided to hang out and do chances. Afterall, who am I to pass up 30 seconds of fun just to get to sleep a little earlier tonight?! I don't know if we'll Q, but it doesn't look like a frustrating course, at least.

Saturday

First off, this part of OKC didn't get much snow. Mostly just accumulation on cars and roofs.

We started with tunnelers which is always a fun way to start. It was a good run, so I imagine we Qd.

I did find out we were eliminated on our last run yesterday, so that makes me a little nervous. I don't know exactly why we got an E. We had a briefing this morning so it is one of two things. This judge doesn't allow treats in the run before you go in. Also he won't allow you to tell your dog to stay while you are leading out. Brad won't stay at a trial without that, so we'll have to do running starts all weekend. At least I found out first thing today. This is very different from any trial I've ever done, but we'll go with it!

We got first (OK, so we were the only dog...) In tunnelers. We just ran touch n go and it went well! Don't think I trained the start line.

Our run of bad regular courses continues. On the first run, he just wouldn't do the weaves. On the second, I saved him from nearly going off course only to turn my back and have him sneak back onto the A frame. We have two more shots at regular tomorrow. However, counting the runs tomorrow and the ones we'll have in April, we will only be able to do 9 runs before the Champs cut off. So, with only 150 points going into this weekend, we won't be able to get the points we need to enter regular at Champs. There has been some talk of the possibility of lowering the points requirement for Open dogs, but I am not counting on it. We can always try to enter special classes only and see if we can get in for those.

I forgot to mention that we did Q (1st place) in touch n go, so we got that title. That's 3 special classes we're eligible to do in Champs--hoopers, tunnelers, and touch n go.

Well, no Q in chances, as usual. There was a split second where I thought, "He's going to do it!" Then he came running right back to me, crossing the distance line. He did take the tunnel (and not the A frame) when I told him to, though!

The jumpers run was nice, but I should have known when I beat him ti the finish line that we wouldn't make time.

I noticed they were doing move ups in regular for tomorrow, so I asked if I could do a move down. I got a strange look, but they said yes, so tomorrow we'll be back in novice for regular. I also sent an email to ask them to move us down at the WAG trial next month. I'm wondering if I should have moved down in weavers, too. It's a hard decision, because that would be completely giving up on entering everything at Champs (just in case they lower the point requirements), but maybe we don't need to do weavers at Champs!!! Oh, well, I still have a day or two to decide.

Trial Updates...

We made it t o Norman around 4:00. The rain was pretty bad through most of Oklahoma, but it was still in the 40's so no ice. That is not the case right now! It's right around 32, so there is some ice on the car. It was sleeting earlier, but it is just misty now.

We did our two weavers runs. He ran right past the last hoop on the first run, so no Q. I don't think it would have been fast enough anyway. With the weather the way it is, we didn't wait for results from the second run. It was clean, but might not have been fast enough either.

We are nice and warm in our hotel room now. Brad is checking all the trash cans to see if he can find any goodies. No luck for him!!

Leaving for OKC in about 10 minutes...

Current temp in Norman, OK: 48
High for today in Norman, OK: 49

Current temp in Austin, TX: 62
High for today in Austin, TX: 76

And I thought Texas weather was crazy...

Click the link above. That's just about all I can say.

Just about...

Norman is right outside of Oklahoma City. One to THREE inches is what is forecasted. You have GOT to be kidding me. Seriously.

I will update throughout the weekend if my fingers aren't too frozen to type on the tiny little phone keys!

Maya

Poor Brad...he doesn't shed, so I didn't think it would be appropriate to enter him in the Bissell MVP Pet Photo contest! Maya is entered, and voting for her group began today. If you have a chance, click the link at the left, and drop a vote for Maya! If she wins, Bissell will make a donation to the pet charity of our choice. We would love to donate to Operation Baghdad Pups. The link is in the title, in case you are not familiar with the program. It is an awesome effort to help keep soldiers and the dogs they have found in Iraq together. Those of us that have pets know the great impact they have on our well being. How cool would it be to help this organization get these dogs to great, loving homes, and help our soldiers at the same time?!

Decisions, Decisions...

Well, we have two trials between now and May that we are signed up for. One is in Norman, OK, and the other in McGregor, TX. That will give us the opportunity for 7 Q's in regular, but lets face it, we haven't been doing that well lately!! The only other trial in Texas will be over the 4th of July in College Station. So far, there's been no word on NADAC lowering the points requirement for Open dogs, so I'm assuming I still need 250 lifetime points. We have 100. Even with the College Station trial, we'd only have 4 more chances, giving us only room for one NQ! However....we may not even be able to make it to that trial. So, I've spent all morning comparing two trials that are sort of on our way to our possible vacation destination--the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

One trial is in Montpelier, OH, and the other is in Davenport, IA. Either trial will require me leaving Texas before Phil can. I've compared hotel costs, flights to either Detroit or Chicago, runs offered at each trial, price of each trial, etc... (Can we say Type A?!?!) As far as costs go, I think it will be slightly cheaper to do the Iowa trial and that one is indoors. The one in Ohio is outside, and we've never done that before. Our class is outside, though, and Brad handles that. Is it hot in Ohio, though? Will there be any shade? Hence the title, decisions, decisions!

We are already qualified for Hoopers and Tunnelers at Champs. All we need to qualify in Touch N Go and Jumpers is one more Q in each. We'll make our first attempt at Open Weavers next week in Oklahoma, so we still need 3 Q's in that. I'm positive we'll get the TNG and Jumpers titles, probably next weekend, but if not, definitely in April. We'll have to see how Weavers goes since Open has 12 weave poles rather than just 6! Weave poles are still hit or miss for us. So, if we don't get the points we need to regular, we could always go to the Champs and just enter the special classes. We just wouldn't be eligible for the big prizes, not that I expect to come close to winning any! It would just be fun to say we did it!

AKC Trial

Well, things went pretty well for us! In a way, AKC is more laid back than NADAC. We managed to Q in jumpers with weaves, despite it taking about 4 attempts at the weave poles, causing us to go over a few seconds on time. Definitely would not have been a Q in NADAC! Then, in the standard course, he started up the dog walk when he should have come to the teeter, but we were still able to Q since it was only a 5 pt. fault. So, that's two runs, and two Q's for us today! We also got first place both times, but there was only one other dog our height in the Novice A group, so that kind of doesn't count. :) It still made for a fun day, and a good AKC experience. I expect we'll be going back fairly soon!

Pictures from K9 Xpress Trial

Here are some links to a few of the pictures taken of Braddock in San Marcos. You'll just have to cut and paste into a new window. Some of them are really cute! You can also go to www.osherderarts.com to see all the pictures from the weekend.

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/494099089_odHZj-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/494099722_USkNj-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/494099499_CtAnB-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/494149626_QvAtk-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/492928731_ywxkh-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/492955504_Y8WqV-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/492956189_d7HiL-M.jpg

http://www.oxherderarts.com/photos/492955838_Qi6F4-M.jpg

A Closer Look: Touch N Go

Brad loves touch n go, though it's given us a few problems lately. In touch n go, there are only the contact obstacles, so no weaves, no jumps. The thing that will get us is when they have a tunnel entrance right next to either the A-frame or dog walk entrance. I've linked one of our better runs above. I stayed late after practice one night and really worked on my body language. Brad very rarely will believe what I say over what my shoulders tell him. I have to really exaggerate the turn of my shoulders to get him into the obstacle farthest away from me. We had a very good practice this week, so I'm hoping for a good weekend at the AKC trial, and one more good practice before we head up to OKC for the Lickety Split trial.

Whew....

It took us a week to recover from that last trial! It was pretty hot on Sunday, and boy were we ready to head home! We're doing our first AKC trial next weekend. We're just doing one day to give it a try. All of our friends in class focus on AKC. We are the only ones that do NADAC mostly, so they convinced us to give it a try.

Hopefully we'll have our summer plans figured out soon, so we can see which trials we'll do. There won't be any NADAC here in Texas between Easter and the 4th of July. Pressure! If we like AKC, we'll probably do a couple of AKC trials in April and May, so we can at least stay active.

Trial Updates throughout the Weekend!

We're in San Marcos for the K9 Xpress trial this weekend. We've had one run so far (regular) and I totally messed B up. My right shoulder is sore and I didn't take into account that I'll need to be closer than usual to anything on my right. I'll know better on the next run. We very rarely Q on our first run anyway. Jitters!! We have 5 more today and 6 tomorrow. I will update throughout the weekend.

Well, our second run was better, but we were sloppy in a few spots and we went 4 seconds over on time. We have a lttile bit of rest time before our next run, which will be touch n go. Maybe by then, our jitters will be out and we'll do a little better.

Our touch n go run was perfect! We finished in 2nd place, three seconds behind Rocket Man! Jumpers is coming up next...

I could kick myself! Brad ran perfectly but I wasn't clear in a tricky area and he took a wrong jump. Luckily we will have jumpers again tomorrow: a chance for redemption and a really cool title ribbon!

One year after getting our first ever title, we now have our final Novice title: hoopers!!! It was a perfect run. In fact, it was so easy I was afraid I had missed something!

We got our Open Tunnelers Title! It was another very smooth run. That is our very first open title. That's it for today!

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Sunday

We're off to a good start today! We were running late because Brad was a little under the weather this morning, but he perked right up when we got here. I barely had time to walk the course, which was pretty tricky as far as tunnelers courses go. We somehow managed to get first place, though!

Our weavers course went well. We did novice today, but we'll start in open laster this month.

This has not been my weekend for juumpers. I got COMPLETELY lost on the course! That's never happened to me before. Brad did awesome, though! He waited on me while I tried to figure out where wwe were suppasoed to be.

Chances is still chances! If its not one thing, its another. There is a reason it took us 18 tries to get our title! Brad did the distance test, but then crossed the line with all 4 paws on the last jump along the line. Only two more runs left this weekend--both regular courses.

Regular has become the new chances...another NQ. Brad is very tired and it is way too HOT in here. He went off course with me yelling at the top of my lungs. He just gave me the "whatever" look. Maybe we'll do better in the next one.

We ended a good note with a Q in our second regular run!

A Closer Look: Jumpers

Brad loves Jumpers! It is a course made up of mostly jumps, with an occasional tunnel thrown in. The open courses have around 20 jumps. Novice had only 17 or so. Boy can we feel the difference! If there's a course that I'm sure to be out of breath on, it's jumpers!

He has Q'd on nearly every jumpers course he's ever done. I don't want to jinx him, but he does have 20 pts, and it only takes 30 to get a title....they sure do have nice title ribbons at the K9 Xpress trials in San Marcos....

Flashback: Brad Meets the Tunnelers Course

March, 2008

San Marcos, TX

When we first started out, we only were doing regular courses, but a friend of ours convinced me to try out tunnelers. I wasn't sure I could remember the course! Brad wasn't good at letting me do rear crosses (he runs in the tunnel, and then I cross the entry behind him) back then, either. Well, luckily my friend helped me walk the courses a few different ways, because it didn't take Braddock long to learn to be OK with a rear cross! He obviously loved the tunnels, and on our third run, we earned our Novice title. You can see the video by clicking the title of the post. We don't have videos of the other runs leading up to the title, because Phil had to hide for a few trials before Brad could handle having him in sight. Even at this trial, we didn't Q on another run because Brad stopped to "wave" at Daddy for too long! Sometimes, in that regard, we haven't come very far! Our tunnelers runs usually are a little cleaner than this one, for sure!

A closer look: Regular Courses

OK, so at the very wise suggestion of our four legged friend Bailey, we are also going to do some posts to give more details about our courses. So, I figured a good place to start was with the regular course. A regular course is made up of jumps, tunnels, weaves, an A-frame, and a dog walk. In NADAC, we don't have teeters, tires, or tables, which was one of the things that first drew us to NADAC over other venues. Once we got started, we loved how laid back and friendly everyone in NADAC was. The hardest part of the regular courses for us these days is when they put a tunnel right under the dog walk, where the entry to the tunnel is right next to the ramp to the dog walk. One weekend (not very long ago), we didn't get our Q on three runs in a row, because somehow, I wasn't giving Brad the right signal. I spent some extra time in our next class working on it, and it paid off at our last trial. In the past, the weaves were our hardest thing. In novice we only had to do 6 weaves in a row, but now that we're in open, we have to do 12. The very last regular course we did, Brad argued with me on the weaves, and we didn't get the Q because we went over the time. Speaking of time, there is a Standard Course Time set for each dog size group (small-med-large). We're in the medium group. Since Braddock is a very tall mini schnauzer, we jump at 16". Most mini's jump at 12". I've attached a link to one of our decent regular course runs from youtube. You can see how those weaves used to give us problems!

Schnauzer fun...

We'll be traveling up to Oklahoma City next month for a trial, and we've managed to find 4 other schnauzers (2 sets of 2) that have invited us to crate with them! That is going to be one loud corner of schnauzers! Should be fun, though!

Flashback...

Thanksgiving, 2007

McGregor, TX

Our first agility trial...ahhh the excitement! I decided to go ahead a do a trial even though we had only started classes in June of that year. I just wanted to see how we'd do and decide from there if trials were for us.

Our first run wasn't bad, for a first run. We did get a Q at least. Back then, there was a distance line (which will be our nemesis for a long time to come), which I had to cross, giving us only a 5 pt. Q. Thankfully, in 2008, NADAC did away with that nasty distance line in regular.

On to our second run. By this time, Brad has figured out that we leave Daddy to go run, but that he can see Daddy. While we are waiting in the run for our turn, he was constantly looking at Daddy and barking at him. We get to the start line...more barking, more looking. We did a few obstacles, but the separation anxiety was just too much for him. He went running out of the ring, right into the lap of...wait, this isn't Daddy, it's just a stranger who took our seat when we moved! Little did Brad know, Phil had moved up higher to video us! Click the link in the title and you can check out this infamous run on youtube. It's got more views than any other run we've ever posted. It probably is the most enjoyable!

The next day, we went back for our third run, and again, he ran right out of the ring. I didn't find this quite so funny the second time around. I wasn't sure at that point if we'd ever go back.

NADAC Champs

Brad and I are trying to make it to the NADAC Champs since they are relavtively close this year. We will need Open titles in 5 different classes and a Novice title in hoopers to enter the full Champs schedule. The classes are regular, tunnelers, jumpers, weavers, and touch n go. In the other blog, I've touched a little on what those are. Tunnelers, Jumpers, and Weavers are just as they sound: a course with mostly the title obstacle. In hoopers, I actually get to determine the order in which we run things. We just have to complete 2 tests in a certain amount of time. Touch n go has all contact obstacles (no jumps or weaves) and is usually pretty fun for us. Regular courses have a little bit of everything in them. In addition to the titles, we have to have at least 100 points in Regular this year and 250 lifetime points in regular. Each qualifying run (Q) earns 10 points. You need 30 points to earn a title.

Well, those are the basics!