Short Ride

I was thinking about going kayaking this weekend but May Gray and/or June Gloom is in full force especially at the beach. It's not too much fun kayaking in cool gloomy weather. So I got the bike out and took a short ride to the top of Santa Paula. These were taken from the Santa Paula hospital parking lot.  Santa Paula was far enough inland to escape the gloom.

A rare selfie!

Yesterday I took a herding lesson  to get some extra practice in before Dottie's first trial next weekend. I moved her up from HT to PT. PT is still the step before novice but it is not the lowest step like HT. She's doing great and I think we should do well unless the sheep are very light, which means they won't the dog get close at all. We haven't dealt with sheep like that before. We shall see!

USDAA

USDAA weekend for Dottie and I at the new Happy Dog location. It is only about 15 minutes from my house on a horse ranch.  I really liked it. It was good weekend for us. However, I need 2 standard legs for our MAD (master agility dog title, somewhat equivalent to an Excellent agility title in AKC), with 2 different judges, and I didn't get any. This is too bad because usually there is only one judge at a trial so that means even if I get lucky and get 2 Qs at one trial, I still won't have the title.  Drat. But, we did get our first Super Q!  You need 3 Super Qs for the ADCH, the champion title, and I have trouble getting them, so that was great! On Sunday we Qed and placed in Snooker, Gamblers and Jumpers, and on Monday- Jumpers, Gamblers and Pairs.

This horse was watching me teach the dogs the skateboard trick and she though she should get a dog treat.  I got permission to feed her apples from a tree and she was placated.  I think she might be an Andalusian. 

Pie is  not pictured because she views horses as prey. I can control her, but I didn't want to take any chances that I might get distracted while talking a picture. This is also why Pie is not herding. Dottie and Fancy are totally neutral towards horses. It is interesting, I'd think they might at least take a passing interest but nope.

Besides running Dottie, teaching tricks and petting the horse, I also worked a bunch of classes and got $34 towards my next entry.  Nice!

Dottie Crawls

I'm making a video of my dog's tricks, but it will take a while.  While you wait, here is a video of Dottie crawling.  She is the only one who does it well so she gets her own video.  Lucky.

AKC National Agility Championship

We traveled to Reno again this year for the AKC Nationals.  Only Dottie was entered this year.  My goal was for 1 clean run (and hopefully a placement!) in the regular classes.  Sadly, I didn't meet my goal, but happily I was "thrown a bone" when Dottie won the 24 inch Premier Standard Class!  She won $102 also!  I will post the videos at some other time, but I was very surprised we qualified, much less won. The Premier Class is an extra hard standard class and I was totally late on all my cues, didn't get where I needed to be, and even forgot the course at one point!  And yet we still won.  Dottie is so good.

Dottie's first place ribbon.

Our 3 runs in the regular courses were not clean.  Standard was good but I think we had a bar.  Jumpers was a disaster.  I couldn't quite get my head around it and it showed.  Hybrid was good but also not clean.

Here are some other pictures from our trip.

Fancy watching the competition.

Most days our jump height competed last, so I was the last car in the parking lot.

Dottie thinks this tractor is sexy.

It was a long and boring drive.

The pictures I ordered for the competition came in the mail today.  I think they all show how athletic Dottie is and how hard she tires.  All pictures by Great Dane Photos.

City of Industry Agility

I've mentioned before I enjoy this venue due to it being under cover and on dirt.  It seems Dottie knocks less bars on dirt.  However, the Expo Center has now started charging $5 a day for parking.  While that doesn't seem like a lot, combined with the gas it takes to get there, not to mention the time, I think I will be skipping further trials here and sticking closer to home.

We went out on a good note.  Saturday was not so good but Sunday we got a Double Q.  Second place in standard due to a spin after the chute, but a very smooth first place in Jumpers.  The courses this weekend were tricky.  I prefer tricky courses because sometimes the courses are too easy and boring (easy doesn't equal a Q for us, though.)  But these courses had weird angles- I didn't really prefer them.  But it did challenge me, so I suppose I approve.

CycleShell

My portable motorcycle garage finally came.  There was some trouble delivering it, but with the help of the tracking number, it was finally tracked down.

It is heavy due to the integrated floor, so it was good I was able to get help getting it into my back yard.  Setting up the CycleShell was super easy.  Just pulling it up and over.  Next step is to clean my motorcycle.  It has been sitting out so it is filthy.  Poor thing.

It is a lot bigger than I expected.  A tiny bit taller than me.  It still fits nicely in the place I park my bike.

Herding

From Dottie's instinct test, I knew she'd be good at herding.  She wasn't mean to the sheep and she wasn't too fast for them either.  Our only hold up was the cash needed for training.  Herding is not a cheap sport.  Now that I moved I have some cash to play with.  We've had 2 lessons so far and another tomorrow.  My plan is to do a lesson every other week because I don't have that much cash.  The trainer keeps telling me how well Dottie is doing and how nice of a dog she is.  You may think she's saying nice things to keep me coming, but I do know enough about herding to know that Dottie is already doing well.  Most dogs spend the first lessons running in circles around sheep.  The trainer already had Dottie coming to balance behind the sheep and walking up.  Here are some pictures from our first lesson.

Coming to balance for walking up.

Going one way...

Some frustration barking because she wants the sheep to go faster, but the trainer tells Dottie to slow down.

Then going the other way.