One title down...

Finally, today Tinky got her final Advanced Standard Q, and her AADC! Tink's Junior Handler, Natasha, is happy she can now run Tink officially again! Her weaves weren't the prettiest, but she got the entries, and that's all you need in Advanced. Steeplechase again started off great, but fell apart in the last three pieces. Advanced Team wasn't great, Tink had an off course, and our partner, slipped off the teeter, which is faulted. Close but no cigar. And we won't talk about the Master Jumper fiasco! Lets just say we both screwed it up! Pictures to follow!

Busy weekend!

This weekend was a bit of a busy one for Tinky! Friday night we went to help set up for K9 Klubhouse's CKC trial, and played at the fun match.
Saturday Tink and Natasha (without me :*( ) set off to the Bowmanville's Fabulous Fifties festival for a sport demo with Superdog Central. She was a little worried without me around and was losing a bit of focus during the first demo. I was able to make the second demo... which was not a good plan, Tinky was just looking for me, so I had to help out. Then I had to go, but I hear Tink did well for her third demo!

And this morning, Natasha and I loaded up the car with Tink, Kessie and Coby, and headed off to Royackers for a day of agility. The weather threatened rain, but we were lucky to get out early enough to avoid it! The morning started off with Master Snooker, everything went according to plan, (except for I thought Tink had a refusal in the closing, but we weren't called on it) we got our first Master Snooker Q with 50 points! Our second run was Advanced Team. Tink ran her half clean! No Q, but I was happy with Tink! Steeplechase was next. The run started off beautifully, until we got to the very end, and got an off course... it's hard to make up 20 seconds... even with a fast dog. Our last run was that elusive Advanced Standard... just one more dang Q... Not today, we had a refusal on a jump, but the rest of the run went well. A very good day over all... and best of all, Tink kept up all the bars!! I wish everyday was an agility day!!

First times a charm!!

Off today to MaCann's for our first trial since the Ontario Regionals. The first half of the day was a Master's AAC trial, followed by CPE. This was Tink's first time competing in CPE. It was also Tink's first time doing Master Snooker! None of the dogs before us made it to the closing... not giving me a lot of hope. Things went a little haywire near the beginning, but we held it together and didn't get whistled off! The closing went pretty well... until we got to #7 which were the weaves. She ran past the weaves and got whistled, we were 4 points shy of a Q, but still pulled out a first place! Not too bad for a dog I thought would still be in Starters!!
With only 2 more Q's to go for our Steeplechase Title, the countdown is on... though this week we knocked 2 bars and had an off course... so 2 more still!
Another countdown is Master Gamble... only one more needed, and we'll get our first Gamble title... but again, no Q today... Tink was too eager in the main gamble, and wasn't quite listening.
Then CPE began... two Standard runs and one Colours run. Tink's first Standard run was greather time was less then half of the SCT! We Q'd and got first place.
Standard 2 wasn't quite as pretty, but only 5 faults (for a knocked bar) so we still Q'd, and got second.
The last run was Colours. She ran it very well... in under 15 secs! One more Q and first for CPE. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my CPE ribbons... my AAC ribbons have almost filled up their alloted space...

Kes is a big girl now!

Kes was in her ex-pen beside me while I was on the computer, and i could hear her playing with something small ad hard on the floor, so I reached in to get rid of what I thought was something she shouldn't be playing with, and it was a tooth! Yay, I was hoping to get at least one tooth (I got a few from Tink). I did a quick search in her mouth and another tooth was just barely hanging on, so I snatched that one too! Now i have 2 of Kessie's baby teeth!

Congr'ATCh'ulations to Abbey and Shona!

Congrats to our friends Abbey and Shona who, this weekend, became the first Wire-haired Fox Terrier to achieve their ATChC!!

Regionals Day 3

OK, so in the last Regionals post, I didn't get to Sunday. I just got sick of typing, and it was getting, really wordy. So here's my continuation.

Day 3 started off with Jumpers. On paper it looked like the hardest Jumpers ever! It was very hard to walk as well because a lot of the action was going on in one area of the course, making it very congested. A lot of people were getting lost on course... something I was sure I was going to do. At one point, for a split second I did forget what was next, it was a very, very short amount of time, but just short enough to put me behind where I needed to be, causing Tink to have a refusal. We go through the tough part of the course and was coming up to the final stretch, which was a jump, tire, spread, and a call off of a jump straight ahead, to one on the left. Coming down the stretch, I called her off the jump, and she called off very nicely... until I realized, I called her off the spread! So one more refusal, but it turned out to be our best run of the regionals. We placed 52 of 70 dogs with 65 points.

Standard was the most promising courses from Sunday on paper, but some parts we proving to be tricky. We ended up with a refusal, knocked bar and a wrong end of a tunnel. The weave poles were posing a problem for a lot of dogs, so I tried to pull off a front cross, something I amazingly did (barely) and Tink nailed the entry! One of the highlights of the day for us. We placed 64th of 82 dogs an walked away with 70 more points.

Gamble was our last run of the regionals. Working out the math we needed 79 more points to qualify for Nationals. I wasn't planning on going, but the fancy ribbon would have been nice ;). So I figured all we needed was both mini's twice, the four pointer and the main gamble. Something that wasn't a completely unachievable goal... except for the fact that the main was a nasty tunnel sucker course, and a very small percentage of dogs were getting it. We only got the mini's one time each and no main, so we only got 37 points. Placing 46th of 81 dogs. Overall we only got 308 points of the 350 needed and placed 67 of 83 dogs. But all in all it was a great time and we had fun hanging out with our agility friends.

Uncles Spy and Zephyr (Q x Kyle), Tink and Kessie

Woofstock

Yesterday Kessie and I were off to Woofstock with Gus, Tiffany and her mom Donna. There were A LOT of other dogs there, so I was glad I didn't bring Tinky with me. Kessie got a lot of compliments throughout the day. Due to a bit of confusion (Gus was supposed to be in the costume contest) Kessie and Gus ended up in the fashion show. Poor Gus was in a red dress and hat, and Kessie was a hotdog! It was a fun (yet hot!) day for both dogs. They got lots of yummy treats.

Training Agility in 5 easy steps!

This short video will teach you all the skills you need to teach your dog to play agility in 5 very simple steps!

2008 AAC Ontario Regional Championships

May 23-25 was the AAC Ontario Regional Championships. This was Tink's (and my) first time at the Regionals. It was a big trial with around 400 competitors.

Friday, Day 1, started of with a Touch and Go and a regular AAC sanctioned Steeplechase qualifier, with the top 20% moving on to the Sunday finals. Tink's Touch and Go was... well... touch and go... she hit her contacts, and went! Not exactly what I was hoping for. Steeplechase went pretty good. For the spirit of the weekend, I decided not to force contacts, if i got them, great, if I didn't, oh well... (bad trainer!!). Tink took the first bar in the steeplechase, I thought 'Oh, no, here we go!!' but the rest of the run went very well, Tink even got a pretty tough weave entry, who a lot of dogs were missing. We ended up 18th of 69 dogs. Just 4 spots out of the finals... if that first bar stayed up we would have been 8th.
The video of Tink's run is here.

Saturday, Day 2, our groups first run was Gambles, it wasn't a very good run, in fact our worst run of the weekend, no main gamble and not even a mini. We ended up with only 26 points, and placed 67 of 83 dogs.

Run 2 was Jumpers. We had a refusal, knocked bar and an off course with a wrong end of a tunnel (thanks to me). But Tink some call offs and stuff I didn't think we'd be able to pull off. We got 45 points and placed 65 of 83 dogs.
The video of Tink's run is here.

Tink's mom, Tribble, on the Day One Jumpers course. The winner of the 22" regular division!!

Run 3 was Standard. It started off with 2 jumps and a major call off of a tunnel onto a dog walk, one of Tink's weakest points. She did it flawlessly, it was great!! We knocked the double, I was in the wrong placed and Tink ran past a jump, taking it back when we went to try again, and another knocked bar at the end. We had 35 faults and had 65 points, placing 55 of 82 dogs.

Long overdue update

I'm quite late on a few updates. Mostly because I was waiting for results from the second day of Spot On. The Sunday was a very cold, very wet day! We had no clean runs, but the runs weren't horrible, considering the weather.

Ok... so maybe we need to work on some jumping skills...

...but she still makes it!

Kessie found a new friend, Phoenix!

Kessie has another red girl to look up to...

Pretty girl

My baby!

Thanks to Shona for all the pictures!!