Wordless Wednesday: My Teammate

Agility Trial: LaMesa at the Border Terrier Trial at Queen City

I'm a little late in posting the wrap-ups from the Border Terrier Club trial at the Queen City Dog Training Club, and for that I apologize! Instead of boring you with why, I'll just get right to it.

This was our first trial back after Nationals. LaMesa had a nice break after the Louisville Cluster, but she was ready to run like nobody's business.

The courses by Peter Liu are usually very challenging, but always fun to run. This weekend they were fast courses, but they did provide their own little problems that maybe you don't see right away on the course map--off course distractions, etc. I guess I unintentionally decided to challenge not only myself but my dogs in doing different things.

For instance, in this Standard run with LaMesa, I should have just let her do the weaves and trusted her at the end for a front cross or blind cross. Instead, I wanted to rear her into the weaves, which meant me getting in her way (which you hear she does not approve), causing her to get pushed out of the entrance and refusing. I could have just pushed her into the correct end, but I didn't trust her. I need to learn to trust LaMesa now that we're getting more trials under her collar.



Sunday we finally saw some success with a clean run, and her second Masters Jumpers leg! The only thing I wish I had handled differently was the first rear cross--I was too late (or too early?), but thankfully she stuck with me and moved forward.




Peter liked starting his courses this weekend with tunnels. I quickly learned that I need to really work with LaMesa on control when it comes to those start lines. In each run that started with a tunnel, she was fired up, which did not allow me to get the right start. She doesn't have a 100% solid start line stay, yet, and she definitely doesn't when it comes to tunnels/chutes at the start.

In Sunday's Standard, LaMesa was fired up to see the chute at the beginning (when I sat her down in front of the chute she playfully growled at me, and I immediately thought "Uh oh"). I meant to do a front cross on the landing side of the jump (second obstacle) so I could pull her to the correct side of the tunnel. When I couldn't get there in time, I had hoped to beat her to the end of the dog walk to front cross there. When that didn't work, I tried pushing her...yeah...no good. She went into the wrong end of the tunnel. After that, I decided to try a blind cross at the end of the weaves, but to do that I needed to beat her to the end of the weaves...taking off like I did caused her to pop out of the weaves to catch up to me. So, lots of work to do there. (And I'll admit there was a small voice in the back of my head saying this could be LaMesa's first QQ...FAIL.)




We're making progress...slowly, but surely. We'll get that first QQ soon!

Stump of Fury Heading to AKC National Agility Championships!

We're hitting the road again!

 

Dally & Porter are going to be road tripping buddies once again! Meet the captains of #TeamDailyCorgi

Merinda and I will be hitting the road extra early Wednesday morning to head east to Pennsylvania for a return trip to the AKC National Agility Championships.

Be sure to follow along as we tweet, Instagram, and blog our adventures. This year we're teaming up with a few select Corgis for #TeamDailyCorgi, brought to you by The Daily Corgi.

Follow along by searching #TeamDailyCorgi on Twitter & Instagram, and also:

Twitter: @TheStumpKids
Instagram: @MLA317
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/mla317

And Merinda:

Blog: The Brews Brothers

Twitter: @PorterTheCorgi
Instagram:PorterTheCorgi
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/merinda76

And our friends, Taryn & Jimmy, who will be attending their first AKC Nationals!

Blog: Tail of Two Cardis

I also wanted to share my bio that I wrote for the announcer this year. It's a little non-traditional, but I hope it gets read at some point this week:

This is Dally and Megan's third consecutive trip to Nationals, but every year it's always a happy surprise. For a dog that some said wouldn't be an agility champion, the pair earned their PACH in 2012 and are well on their way to PACH2. Megan knows Dally isn't the fastest, but she knows Dally will try to please her, and that's all that Megan asks for. She's thankful to have such a wonderful sidekick by her side at all times. Dally is her heartdog and has earned many, many miles under her collar. This has truly been a fun ride.

Be sure to tune into the fun!! Here's hoping for some epic adventures and great memories!

GLTC Kentuckiana Cluster AKC Agility Trial: Course Maps

This weekend the Stump Kids and I traveled an hour west to compete at the Greater Louisville Training Club's Kentuckiana Cluster--four days of dog shows: rally, obedience, agility, conformation... Pure craziness.

The following are the course maps from Saturday and Sunday, from judges Tim Pinneri, Jennifer McDonald, and Annette Natal.

Coming up, our wrap-up!

Agility Trial: Dayton Dog Training Club Oct. 26-27, 2013

This weekend the Stump Kids and I bundled up and headed north with Merinda and the Brews Brothers for the Dayton Dog Training Club's AKC Agility trial in Springfield, Ohio. The judges were husband and wife team Jim and Judy Smotrel, who also happen to be the judges Dally got her PACH on almost a year ago. The indoor horse arena's dirt was packed down solid--could make for some slides and some sore puppies. The courses were really nice and flowy, not a lot of hard challenges but a few call-offs.

Here are the courses from the weekend. Like usual, I'll follow up with reviews of Dally and LaMesa's runs on these courses later.

Saturday:

Sunday: