USDAA Southwest Regional

USDAA is the United States Dog Agility Association, a venue I don't participate in as much as I do AKC.  On reason is the long days.  There are more runs each day so you end up being there all day.  That doesn't leave much time for weekend chores, or even weekend sleeping. 

I went to this show because it was local- just down the street.  I didn't treat it as a "regional," meaning something more important than a local event.  I just went to have fun and to see if I can pick up some legs towards titles.  All my dogs are currently in the performance program in USDAA.  This is the lower jump height.  Pie because of her back, Fancy her age, and Dottie because she is 22 inches tall and is required to jump 26 inches and I don't think it is necessary to jump that high.  That and the regular jump height is very competitive, and at this point in her career, Dottie is not a very competitive dog.

Pie and her friend Maggie Mae were on a team called MagPie.  In the team event, which was Friday, you combine your scores and  then the teams either qualify or do not.  Both Pie and Maggie had some issues here and there so we did not qualify.  Each dog/ handler had 2 huge mistakes, and even with those huge point losses, we were not that far out of the running!  In the team events you don't really Q or NQ- it is time plus faults.  So I'll only mention one if Pie placed.

Pie placed 3rd in Team Snooker.  Outside of the team events we also did regular Master Level classes called PIII.  Pie got a Q in relay, 2nd in standard, and 2nd in Gamblers, and 2nd in Jumpers.  She also got 3rd in the Grand Prix. 

Fancy was also in PIII.  She qualified in Performance Speed Jumping (Steeplechase), Grand Prix, relay, standard, jumpers and snooker.  No placements for her.  Darn border collies.

This was Dottie's first USDAA show.  She placed 1st in Standard, Jumpers, and Gamblers and 2nd in the Grand Prix.  Which is pretty good since Grand Prix is a technical course and all levels run together so she was running against masters level dogs.  Her GP run was not terribly fast since I had to run all 3 dogs 1 after the other, and my friend held the waiting dogs outside the ring.  Dottie was on her slip lead and strangled herself trying to join me in the ring.  We went in with her tongue dragging on the ground.  Poor girl.  Still, it was good enough for 2nd!  She Qed and placed 5th in Speed Jumping.  She NQed her second standard run due to hitting the displacable tire, so it is the same as a bar down, and I NQed us in Snooker due to forgetting our plan and starting the closing before I did all the reds.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, just know that it was an NQ because I am brainless.

I put a lot of effort into keeping Dottie happy and reved up before our runs.  I think she needs maximum effort from me in order to give her maximum effort.  Sigh- some day I'll have an easy dog.  Oh wait- I guess that is Pie.  Pie whose tail is injured.  The drugs are helping a little bit.  Poor Pie.

I let Dottie not stop on the contacts in an effort to keep her happy.  I think it helped, but when I say touch too early she slows down too early.  Some times I didn't say anything.  That seemed to work ok too.  I got all of Dottie's runs on video, but the internet is going slow slow right now they will not get loaded tonight.  Stay tuned....

Dog loot.  As usual, Fancy is not impressed.