NADAC Agility Trial 3-14-14

It feels so good to be back in the ring!
We haven't been to a trial since July, while I was still pregnant with Aurora.
We've been trying to practice, but we had so much snow, being in the backyard has been difficult.  We were only able to compete one day in this trial.  We wanted to use is as a little break back into the sport.  I tried really hard to have no expectations, since we've been benched for so long.



Since we only entered one day, we went ahead and entered all 3 events for Friday night.  We usually don't ever Weavers..because weave poles are Oliver's weakest obstacle. He's been doing really well in the yard, for being so out of practice.  He gets the first set with no problem.  However, the other 2 sets cause some trouble.  We obviously didn't qualify, but it gives me hope that with enough practice we just might have a Q or two coming our way on this event.



Touch N Go is Oliver's best event.  We've advanced to the Open level.  This course was a little tricky.  The last hoop of the course is also obstacle number 7 or so..right in the middle..I was worried he'd think he was finished..he did, but it didn't slow him down much.  We finished with a great run that was 7 seconds under course time!  We took a Q and 1st place!  So happy!



Tunnelers is a sort of take it or leave it event for Oliver.  I was hoping since it was Friday night instead of Sunday like usual that he'd be a little more fired up and I'd get some good speed.  Well, it did work out that way.  It was a nice course that flowed well for us.  We were only under by 2 seconds..but that's good enough for a Q and 1st place at the Open level.

I love it when we have a great day at a trial.  Oliver really pulled out the stops and showed everyone that he's an agility dog today.
I couldn't be more proud of my boy!
We can't wait for the next trial in May.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 7-7-13 Day 3

Well, today was a total bust.  We didn't get one clean run all day.  I don't know where his focus went.  So I will spare you the crappy footage.
But what I do have are stills.  They had a photographer all weekend, so we got some nice shots.

As you can see..he was more focused on being pretty for the camera, than paying attention to Mama.

Oh well, we had 2 good days.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 7-6-13 Day 2

Today was a short day for us.  We only had 2 events.  The plan was to take it easy this weekend, I really ended up entering more events than I originally planned...but that sheet just kept filling up while I was filling it out.

Quick!  Some footage..



First up for us was another go at Regulars.  The course was really set in our favor, and I hoped this would be another win..well in some ways it was.  He started off great and hit the weave poles with a good amount of focus.  I had to call him back to repeat them, well he weaved through them backwards to get to me, which cost us a 10 point deduction.  Damn.  He kept great speed all through the end.  We were under the course time, but the deduction prevented us from getting the Q.



We finished up our day with Open Jumpers.  Another nice course.  He had great speed, stayed with me the whole time and we finished strong.  This was our first Open Q!!  I'm so proud of my big boy!

Good boys get rewarded with tummy rubs!!

Tomorrow is a full full day.  Hopefully we'll keep up the good work.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 7-5-13 Day 1

This is our last trial before Baby Rodgers gets here, so we wanted to make sure we got out and did our best.
Oliver had a pretty great first day.
This trial is a little bit of a change of pace, it's inside at Sports City in Blue Springs.  It's great to be off the dirt for a change.
This trial also is different because they added 2 extra events, and changed the order of the runs.  We're hoping that it will give us a little bit of an advantage in certain events.
To the footage!


We started off with a BANG!  Not typical for Friday night, but Regulars was first up.  If you recall, Oliver surprised all of us with a Q last trial we went to...I had high hopes.  And it turned out to be a good thing.  He pulled it off again!  He had to repeat the weaves once, but we got it on the second try.  We also beat the course time by 10 seconds.  When he's on, he's really on.



Touch N Go was the second event for us.  This is typically his best event.  We're in the Open class for this event.  You can hear..just as we were getting ready to go, they decide to make an announcement..for a full 30 seconds.  I think it really threw us off our game.  He took the tunnel first, when he was supposed to take the dog walk..and we had a little trouble at the end too.  Damn.



Tunnelers was last on our list for Friday night.  We've been chasing the Novice title for a year.  Well folks, we finally got it!!  This was a great run, and a great course.  It felt good all the way to the end.  His speed was great.  He really pulled out all the stops.  I'm so proud of my boy!

Here we are at the end of the day, with our shiny shiny new Novice Tunnelers Title!!

We're back for a short day tomorrow..stay tuned.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 5-12-13 Day #3

Woah, I'm a super slacker.  Sorry..this week sort of got away from us.
I do have the details on our final day of competition at the trial from last weekend.  Man, I really need to get my act together.


Open Jumpers was first.  This course was so easy..and nicely laid out.  I had high hopes that this would be the one!  The one to earn our first Open Q.  Well it wasn't.  We had a tunnel mishap..not sure what happened there.  But we fixed it, and we were making up the time I thought we just might have it.  But he decided to take a jump that wasn't even in his path, much less on course.  Crazy dog.  I am glad however that we have a little Open experience under our belts before next time.


Novice Regulars.  You know how I feel about this event.  We keep trying, and this time we succeeded!  Again, a really great course.  The weave poles we in the middle of the course this time, so I had hoped it would help him keep his focus, and it did.  He was going a bit fast and you can see me try to slow him down, but he missed the entrance the first time..but he came right back around and got it on the second try!  Way to go Olliedog!


It mostly went down hill from here.  We had 2 chances at our Novice Tunnelers title, and we blew it both times.  Not enough speed in this first round.


And an off course in this second round.

We're going to keep at it.  We're going to attempt to trial in July.  I'll be pretty pregnant by then, but we're going to give it a go if I'm up for it.  We also might debut Coraline that weekend.  It should be interesting either way.

Stay tuned.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 5-11-13 Day #2

We were back at it for a full day of trialing.
We had high hopes since Friday night went so well, but today was more of a Barrel of Monkeys, with a few small victories thrown in.

On to the footage!!



We started our morning off with a little Touch N Go.  This would have been a beautiful run.  I don't know what's gotten into him lately, but he's been super fast all weekend.  As we were coming towards the camera, there are three hoops, he took all 3 at lightning speed and didn't even bother to look at me.  What was SUPPOSED to happen, he was supposed to take only 2 of them, then turn back for the tunnel.  He did however keep the great speed through the whole course, we did miss a hoop in the final stretch, but at that point it didn't matter, he'd already gone off course.  I was pleased with him that we hit all the discriminations. You can't see but we took the blue tunnel under the A-frame.  And if you follow along at all, you know the A-frame is his favorite.



We do Regular rounds mostly just for kicks.  We still have weaving problems..I don't know what his deal is, or how to fix it.  This course had a few problem spots for us.  He took a pause on the far side of the ring because I called him to me too soon.  My plan was to be on top of it because the next thing in his line of sight after that hoop was the A-frame.  I wanted to make sure he made the turn.  He did, but after a pause.  He was going so fast that he kept on running to that red jump near the end.  You can see we took the weave poles way too fast and he was super amped up..and really we never have a prayer of completing them accurately..but I'm pleased with his speed..that's hard for me to get out of him.



Again if you follow along, you know that we earned our Novice Jumpers Title, meaning we can move up to the Open class, and we did.  This was our very first Open run.  We started off pretty good, but then you can see I forget that I wanted to cross in front of him, and in my haste to make it happen, I kicked up some dirt, well he thought it deserved investigating..after that I had trouble getting it together, and I jacked up the serpentine pattern too.  You can see I push him left too soon, then I have to stop to get him over to the correct side of the jump.  He finished fast though and really for a first effort we couldn't have asked for more.   We were about 10 seconds over time.  I like to think that if I had my handling together that we would have made it.  I'm excited to give it another try tomorrow morning.

That's right, one more day in the ring.  We're getting 2 chances at our Tunnelers title tomorrow..wish us luck!

Jessica 

NADAC Agility Trial 5-10-13 Day #1

I didn't fall off the wagon, we've just been really busy.
But I'm back now, and I've got some agility footage for you.  We're currently participating in a trial this weekend.
Friday night, the usual suspects, Hoopers and Touch N Go.  We were up for a TnG title so I was pretty excited when we got to the trial site.  But they threw a wrench in my plans!  As we were walking in, they were making an announcement about a new obstacle..the barrel.  It's just that, a barrel, and you go around it. All that is fine and good, except we have never practiced it, or even seen one before.. what is this..some kind of pony show?

We did however have a great Friday night...I'll prove it with the footage.



Hoopers was first up, as always.  The course seemed like it would flow very well and that we wouldn't have any trouble.  I was slightly concerned because Oliver had been particularly fired up all afternoon, so I was afraid that perhaps he would bolt.  But he didn't.  He did take off at high speed..you can see me lagging behind, I'm not as fast as I once was.  He only had one tiny pause on the course, but nailed everything else perfectly.  He kept up his speed which makes me so happy.  We finished in 2nd place and got the Q!  We were almost a full 5 seconds under the course time!



Now for the pressure.  Touch N Go.  All we need is one more Q to earn our Novice Title.  This is where the barrel comes into play.  The dog can go around it in either direction, and apparently if you need to go around it with them, you can.  This course also seemed pretty great, except for the barrel, I wasn't sure how he'd handle it.  We had a few practice tries that he did fairly well, so I was crossing my fingers.  He NAILED it!  He had zero trouble out there.  The course played to our strengths, having him take the contacts instead of the tunnels.  We took 1st place, and a Q!  This of course earned us our Title!  We spanked the course time by almost 12 seconds.  Way to go Oliver!

We're in it for a full day tomorrow, so be ready!

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 3-17-13 Day 3

Sorry for the delay on the final day of the trial..but Team Rodgers was wiped out after we got home.
Our last day wasn't a total bust, but I had been hoping for a little better.



This was our first run on Sunday morning.  We had the opportunity to bump up to the Open class since we got a title on Saturday, but we decided to stay in Novice just to help build some confidence for both of us.  He did really well, he had nice speed and stayed with me the whole time.  You can see at the end he looks off, he was checking out the bar setter.  It seems to bother him when other people are out on the field.  Oh well, he came right back to it and we finished 1st place and got the Q!



We keep entering Regulars..and we keep hoping it will go well..but it keeps not happening.  This course looked pretty straight forward.  I thought it was going to be fairly easy until we got to the weave poles at the end.  We started off strong and I had high hopes since there were no discriminations.  But, you can see as we come back around, he's supposed to take the tunnel under the A-frame..he swings wide and takes the frame instead...twice.  And the weaves at the end were terrible...they're always terrible in the ring.  I'll have you know that Sunday morning before we left the house..he did them perfectly in the yard.  We've still got a lot of work to do.



The first Tunnelers run.  Our first chance at the title.  He had a nice run, and I felt good about it, but it turned out to be too slow.  We were 5 seconds over time.  So no Q for us here.



This run was nice too, until I blew it.  You can see me look around like a retard..I lost Oliver.  I thought he missed the yellow tunnel..he didn't, but I couldn't get it back together after that.  He stalled at the blue tunnel, which cost us the 4 seconds we were over time.

Next trial we're up for a Touch N Go title, and a Tunnelers title.

It's in May, so we've got a little bit of time, and hopefully some nice weather to get some practice time in.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 3-16-13 Day 2

We were back for more action today.
It was a down right grueling day.  The first event is the same course for everyone so we had to be there early to make sure I got a chance to walk it.  We had to get up at 630.  If you know Team Rodgers, you know that we don't function well at that particular hour.  Even the dogs were upset.  We also had a lot of down time since we only did 3 events today.  It was down right freezing in the building.  Oh the hardships of being an agility handler.
On to more bellyaching, I mean footage...



Another go at Touch N Go.  It was basically the same course but technically easier..Oliver was supposed to take the tunnels this time.  He didn't like that idea.  You can see right out of the gate he steps on the dog walk instead of taking the green tunnel.  Turd.  Then you can see that I push him out to the yellow tunnel under the A-frame, which he takes, and I am pleased..so I continue on...that little turd turned around, came back out and went up the frame.  Are you kidding me?  It gets better.  You can't see him but we're having a misunderstanding about him taking that second yellow tunnel.  He was busy sniffing the sandbags that was holding it in place.  He finally did take it and we were able to finish the course.  Seeing as how he earned us all sorts of deductions, we didn't get the Q here.  Damn.



We decided to give Regulars a try..this event includes every obstacle possible.  This means weaves.  We had other problems before we even got there.  I hope you enjoy all the people that are going to make an appearance in the video.  So, you can't see, but we have a small disagreement about him taking that green tunnel again.  He finally does it, and I think we're good to go...you can see as we come around that I look around...as if I was lost.  That would be true.  I totally forgot where obstacle #6 was.  I found it though, and we continued on our way.  After that light blue tunnel there is a tricky pattern that I really hate. Oliver is supposed to make an S pattern with the jumps.  I never know how to handle this, and we usually fail.  Well we failed in a whole new way.  That little contact loving turd shot right up that A-frame, despite my best efforts.  When we were out there...I could see the moment he decided that was what he was going to do.  We do finally make it to the weaves, which we fail miserably at.  I can't figure out what his deal is.  We definitely need some serious work.



I did save the best for last.  If you follow along you know that we just need one more qualifying run to complete our Novice Jumpers Title.  Each title requires 3 qualifying (read: perfect) runs.  We've been needing this run for a few competitions now..and it's been eluding us.  Not this time my friends!  Oliver pulled out all the stops and gave me a great run!  He had pretty good speed and his focus was great.  Most of all he had his listening ears on, which he hadn't had up until then.  At the end of the run you can see him look around, he was looking at our home base area, looking for his dad I'm sure.  So, we took a 1st place and got the Q!  And a shiny new title ribbon to boot!




We've got one final day on the field, and we're up for another title...we'll see if we can get that one too.

Jessica 

NADAC Agility Trial 3-15-13 Day 1

So, it's been a while since Team Rodgers has hit the agility field.
But we're back, and we're here to win!
I had high hopes of getting some good practice in this season before this trial, but the snow gods decided that wasn't going to happen.  So I was, and still am a little concerned about Oliver's performance this weekend.
Friday night at the local trials, as you know, if you follow along, I know you all follow along, consists of just 3 events.  Hoopers, TouchNGo and Weavers.  Well if you follow along you know that last time we tried weaving events we were shamed..they were down right pathetic.  And since I haven't had a chance to really work on them, we only entered 2 events tonight.
That's right, time for the footage.



First up, as always is Hoopers. It consists of all hoops.  I mentioned last time we entered this event he ran off like a retard..sadly there was no footage of this.  So I was slightly concerned...but he pulled through like a champ.  His speed was a little down, but we finished cleanly.  The speed thing is partly my fault..you can see me waiting for him..we're just not confident in those pinwheel patterns (you know, where you go around in a circle).  I was pleased with his focus and really pleased it was a clean run.  Alas, no Q for us, we were 0.85 seconds over the Standard Course Time (SCT)  Boo!!



Our final attempt for the night was Touch N Go.  I should start holding quizzes...this event is all about the contacts.  Oliver loves contacts.  Last time we competed he surprised me with a TnG qualifying run..so I had high hopes..that was until I walked this dreadful course.  There are 3 tunnel/contact discriminations.  The point in this particular course is to not take the tunnels.  Oliver also loves tunnels.  Dogs succumb to what is affectionately called "tunnel suck"  and they just can't help themselves.  For Oliver, the worst is the dog-walk/tunnel scenario.  The opening to the tunnel is actually a little bigger than the plank of the dog-walk, so really, who could blame him.  BUT, he's such a good boy, we ACED this run!  He hit every obstacle with no problems what so ever!  You can see me twice in the video raise my arms up in sweet sweet victory as he takes the proper obstacle.  The speed felt good during the run, and it turns out, it was good.  We spanked the SCT and beat it by 12 seconds.  Earning us a 1st place and a big fat Q.  Way to go Oliver.

We're up for a full day of it tomorrow, as well as Sunday.  We'll be calling on the Luck 'o the Irish to help us have the best weekend possible.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 12-14-12

Since I have to work this weekend we were only able to compete this one Friday night.  We only entered Hoopers and Touch N Go, since his weaves have been less than great lately.

We left Coraline at home and took just a few things since we weren't going to be gone for very long.  He was pretty fired up all evening, since he got to be an only child for a little while..and we didn't have our usual set up once we got to the trial site. 

Hoopers went pretty terribly.  The run was going to be difficult anyway.  He took off like a bat out of hell and didn't pay attention at all.  

We were experimenting with some new filming techniques (read: Jonathan was using his new phone and doesn't know what he's doing)  So it accidentally got recorded in double time.  Since it was a disaster, and super fast, circus music would be appropriate.  So, it won't be featured here.

But I do have our second run.  

This is Novice Touch N Go.  For those of you not following along, it focuses on the Contact obstacles.  It had a couple of difficult spots.  Right out of the gate is a discrimination between the tunnel and the A-frame.  Luck worked in our favor and he took the tunnel like he was supposed to.  After that is a pretty tight little ring of hoops I was afraid I wouldn't have enough time to make it through, but that went well too.  The only hiccup we had was he wanted to go back up the back side of the A-frame, but I was able to get him to come back to me and we finished strong!  It felt really nice, and it was a great comeback after our Hoopers disaster.  If you listen to the audio you can hear Jon's creepy voice saying "yes yes" once he realized we were clear of the difficult parts of the course.  

I'm going to toot our horn a little...(it's my show and I can do what I want)  The course is the same for all levels (Elite, Open, Novice) and several of the upper level dogs made mistakes costing them their clean runs.  In our height class there were 5 dogs..Oliver was the only dog to Qualify.  I couldn't be happier!  Oh yeah, even despite our hiccup, we came in 12 SECONDS UNDER TIME!!  He can be fast if he wants to. 

So this was the final trial of the year.  I plan to start taking Cora to training in hopes that she'll be ready in 5 months when she's old enough to compete.  Our biggest concern is that she'll be a runner-offer.  She loves her public.  

I have a card on deck..and not many other craft projects planned.  I'm hoping to find some time to get my craft on before the year is over.  Oh, and we're planning a mini vacation, so there will be photos of that soon.  

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 11-4-12 Day 3

The 3rd and final day of the Trial.
We had a couple thing on the line this day, we need just one more leg (read: good, fast, clean, qualifying run) for both our Jumpers, and Tunnelers title.
Unfortunately today was a day of disappointments.   
Before we get to the footage..I'd like to tell you a story about how daylight savings doesn't always go as planned.  Team Rodgers woke up Sunday feeling refreshed.  Half of the Team was in the shower..the other half looked at the clock on her phone.  The plan was to leave Casa de Rodgers around 715 to arrive at the trial at 8.  When the phone was checked it said 715...so some time math was done, and the nightstand clock was checked, the time was Googled, and ultimately, the "phone guy's" phone managed to set itself back 2 hours!!  He thought it was 615, but really it was 715!  So what was going to be a peaceful morning, was a mad dash to the trial site.  Live and learn.  We learned that you should always set a backup alarm..and that Apple products are superior..as they set their own time to the proper time. Yay Apple!
Now the footage.


Novice Jumpers. This was supposed to be our 3rd and final leg for Oliver's Novice Jumpers Title.  Well..things don't always go as planned.  I had made some plans based on his usual speed.  You can see as soon as I release him, I can tell he's going much faster than I anticipated.  He unfortunately plows into a jump.  It doesn't really slow him down at all, but I was shaken, worried he might be hurt.  He took the next pattern faster that I thought, so I ended up on the wrong side headed back near the start line.  He kept great speed, and I was mostly happy, but too bad we knocked that bar (which he's never done before). He's totally fine, and it didn't shake him at all.


Novice Regular. I didn't really have high hopes based on his previous performance.  We started off good, but of course, the weave poles didn't happen..so it's probably good you can't really see them because of the A-frame.  We went on to miss the Tunnel/Dog Walk discrimination.  He was supposed to go over the Walk. Turd.


Novice Tunnelers. We needed one more leg for our Novice Tunnelers Title.  While this was a good run, it wasn't fast enough, so we didn't get it.  We had one pause at the dark blue tunnel, which put us over the time.  I was hoping he'd be a little faster, since he'd been favoring tunnels all weekend...but sadly, no.


Novice Tunnelers. This was the last run of the trial, and my last hope for a Tunnelers Title..Well he totally spaced, and walked off.  I knew that we'd never finish in time, so we were eliminated.  I was pretty proud of his "wrap" out of the dark blue tunnel, but it went south after that.  On the outside of the course people were packing up the food and other stuff...distracting him.

Overall, we had 1 successful Jumpers run, giving us 1st place, and a Qualifying run.  Other than that..it was either too slow, or serious obstacle faults.
We learned a lot...and we've got a lot of work to do before the next one.  Like a lot of work.  His weaves had been good, so I'm not really sure what happened.  As a matter of fact, today in the yard he sped through the poles like he owned them..turd.
Coraline has moved into the favorite position, and it's only 6 months until she can compete.  She actually had a birthday on Sunday, so the next post is going to be a little Cora-palooza for her 1st birthday.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 11-3-12 Day 2

Day 2 of the trail got started very early.. First dog was on the line at 8am.  This judge doesn't play...he's prompt for sure.  We barely made it in time for me to walk the first course.

Day 2 was mostly a terrible day.  He wasn't performing as well as I knew he could.  But if I didn't share our failures as well as our successes what kind of blogger would I be? Let's get straight to the footage.


Novice Touch N Go #2. Ok, so really this was an Ok run. We just wasted too much time trying to get in that one hoop the right way. And my camera man had a little blurry problem. Another thing that was tricky for us was the "wrap" after the A-frame, he had to go through what looked like the last hoop, and turn completely around and keep going on the course.

Novice Weavers #2. This run was pretty much terrible. It took several times to get the first set of weaves, but I was so happy when he finally did. But it was short lived. After giving up on the second set, Oliver decided he was done, and ran off course. We didn't complete it, so we were eliminated.

Novice Regular #1. This was sort of a disaster as well. We started off strong, but he wasn't supposed to take the A-frame. He looks pretty proud of himself as he pauses at the top. He was supposed to take the tunnel underneath it. The weaves didn't go well either. At the end when he was supposed to take the A-frame, he went all the way around and took the other side of the tunnel. Crazy beast.

This run symbolizes the dog I compete with. This is Classic Oliver. He was wonderful from start to finish. One tiny visit to the bar setter in the chair that looked like Daddy..but he came right back to it. Fast in the final straight away. I couldn't be happier. This earned us 1st place and more importantly, a Q. It was the second leg toward his Jumpers Title.
The whole day was pretty rough. I was disappointed for sure. I'm not sure we would have come back if he hadn't pulled through in the last run.

Day 3 was something else, check back soon.

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 11-2-12 Day 1

Oh man!
Team Rodgers is out on the agility circuit again.
We're playing in a 3 day weekend trail put on by U2 Kan Du Agility in Lawrence.
Today was Day 1, Friday night.  This group is one of the few that puts on events on Friday nights.
Too bad for us, this Friday we did not reign victorious.
You know I've got some footage.


Novice Hoopers.  Our first event of the trial.  He was a bit slow, but overall a clean run.  We were a bit over time, so NQ for us.  Darn.  We were hoping to get the Q which would be our second leg towards our title.  Next time.


Novice Touch N Go.  I knew we were screwed from the start.  The second obstacle was a Tunnel/A-frame discrimination...where you are supposed to climb the frame...well Oliver decided he didn't want to do that.  The rest of the run was ok, and he had no trouble taking the A-frame the second time around.  And of course, we took plenty of time to sniff the dirt.


Novice Weaves.  This was a disaster from the beginning.  Oliver mostly refused to weave properly all night.  He wasn't getting it in the practice arena..and he certainly wasn't getting it in the ring.  He kept approaching from the wrong side.  We half completed 2 of the sets, giving us many fault points, and giving us a NQ.  We've had a hell of a time with Weavers, even though at home, he does fine. We'll keep working.

It was a full night.  The pomeranians are sleepy. We're going to hit the sack early and hit it hard again on Saturday.
I'll give a total breakdown of this weekend's winnings after the trial is over.
Happy Friday

Jessica

Springfield NADAC Agility Trial 7-22-12

Day 2 of the Trial.

We all slept much better than we did Friday night.  2 crates is better than 1 crate. 

We can get right to the footage!

We started the day off with Tunnelers.  I figured it was good, so he wasn't tired...turns out..it was good! We managed to get the Q!  I never think it happen for him!

We just need 1 more Q in Tunnelers to get our Novice title. 

Apparently I almost stepped on him..but if you watch..when he comes out of the orange tunnel, I was there at the same time..my running foot just startled him.  But he kept on going!  Going for the WIN!

I was ready for another shot at Regulars...too bad.  You can see our home base was right by the start line.  Oliver was focusing on his Dad from the get go. I thought we were OK, since he had a pretty good start..but as we came back around to take the weave poles, he stops to look for Jon. We had a series of unfortunate events at the end of the course..when he took the purple tunnel, he was suppose to take the dog walk.  I brought him back around to try again..well we decided to tunnel a second time.  Fine. So my plan was to just finish with the last hoop..Well Oliver had other plans.  He went half way up the dog walk, backwards.  The judge laughed.  Wonderful.  

I was excited to try Weavers again..since last time he ran off like a retard.  We had a pretty good run.  He had a little pause in the middle, I think someone barked or something.  We had a bit of trouble heading into the 3rd set of poles...it was my fault.  I was over too far..we're really lucky I didn't take the poles out myself.    We would have had the Q if it wasn't for the pause, and the wrong placement on my part.  I'm mostly just glad he's weaving in competition.  

Jumpers was the last event of the trial.  We had a great run.  It felt good.  The only hiccup was coming out the the tunnel into the serpentine pattern.  I was a little close to the jump and he paused just a bit.  Turns out, just a bit was the final nail in the coffin.  We were 0.06 over time!  I couldn't believe it.  I'm a little disappointed.  But we're still really new at this, and honestly we did pretty good considering where we are so far. 

Now for the break down. 

Novice Regular #1--NQ, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Jumpers #1--NQ, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Tunnelers #1--Q! (purple ribbon), 2nd place (red ribbon)

Novice Touch N Go--NQ, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Tunnelers #2--Q!!, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Regular #2--NQ, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Weavers--NQ, 3rd place (yellow ribbon)

Novice Jumpers #2--NQ, 1st place (blue ribbon)

All in all it wasn't too bad.  We got 1 Q each day, and I'm happy with that.  We're on the lookout for more trials to attend.  We're for sure going to the U2 Kan Du trial in November.  We've got a lot of work to do before then.  

Bring it on!

Oliver is really lucky to have such a great Agility Dad!  We wouldn't have made it through the weekend without Jon..he's the best Agility Dad!

Jessica

Springfield NADAC Agility Trial 7-21-12

What a trip! This was our first whole weekend trip, and the most events we've entered at a time. We drove to Springfield Missouri on Friday afternoon. It's about a 3 hour drive. We stayed in a hotel, another first!

Oliver and Cora love hotels!

Cora REALLY loves hotels.

Oh, what's this? Let me tell you...THIS is the 70 dollar crate we had to buy Saturday afternoon because Cora is a turd. We only brought one crate for them to share at night. Friday night, about 1:30AM Coraline had a freaking meltdown. We think Oliver rolled on her and she flipped her freaking biscuit...snarling, snapping and the whole 9 yards. So Oliver had to sleep in the bed.  Which he's never done one night in his life.  I think he was happy, being in the bed is sort of a treat for him...but he was restless..moving around and keeping both of us up.

So nobody slept well Friday night. We didn't want to risk a repeat performance from our favorite tiny tot...so a second crate it is!

Team Rodgers home base for the weekend. The sheets are to help cut down on the barking. We were in the walkway..so I think it helped. We eventually had to put another sheet on the backside by the window..Cora couldn't stand the other dogs having fun.

Our first ribbon of the trial. Our first Regulars run..not too shabby for a first attempt!

On to the footage!!


 First time running regulars. Not too shabby. Regulars includes all of the possible obstacles.  I was most worried about the weaves, but we got them with only a tad of a problem. But instead NQ because we made a mistake, he took a hoop backwards because he passed it the first time. It would have been great except for that, we were way under time!


The still of this video is Jon's favorite..it's a pretty funny pose I suppose.  Our jumpers run was ok, we got off when I was too close to that 2nd jump out of the tunnel, and we had a few other problems as well.  He passed that jump in the back of the course, and spaced out and just stared at me...so needless to say, we were over time..



This Tunnelers run was wonderful!  If you remember our last 2 attempts, Oliver isn't in any sort of hurry.  Well when it's all tunnels, that's the name of the game, speed and control.  This was a TOUGH course, and I just wanted to get through it.  Well we flowed through this bad boy like pros!  We got our first Tunnelers Q, which was a huge surprise!  I was so happy!

If you notice, my hair is down in a pony tail instead of a bun...it's because I lost my hair tie on the course for Jumpers I think...agility is hard.

Touch N Go...this was a series of disasters.  I had high hopes because we had done so well last time we entered this.  (only 1.71 seconds over course time)  This was the meanest course I've seen yet.  We were going good in the beginning, I was able to call him off going up that A-frame when he wasn't supposed to.  After the pink tunnel, we were supposed to take the hoop at the end, which he did..but then we were supposed to turn completely around and go up the dog walk...which he did not.  He though we were done..you can see him looking at me...like, where's my treat mom?  When I finally get him turned around that little turn takes the tunnel again by mistake.  We finish with the dog walk and last hoop, but we had the mistake fault, as well as time faults because he thought we were done when we weren't. 

So that was Saturday.  I'll put Sunday's events in another post.  And look for the ribbon break down there as well. 

Back to work today, man I'm exhausted.  But we had a great time. 

Jessica

NADAC Agility Trial 6-29-12

Agility Trial Today!!

Since I have to work this weekend, we were only able to go Friday night...but we'll take it where we can get it. 

New facility this time, indoors! 

Home base for the evening.

There were quite a few people.  We ended up by the exit door, Cora was most upset with the high traffic area.  We're going to pick a better spot next time. 

These trials always move so smoothly..

On to the footage!

Novice Hoopers.  Our first time in this event. It's all hoops...no jumps, no tunnels, just hoops. He was a little slow, but we pulled through and got the Q!  Standard Course Time(SCT) was 33.60 and Oliver's time was 32.93.  We made it by the skin of our teeth!  We also took 2nd place. 

Novice Touch N Go.  First time here too.  The main focus in this event is the contact obstacles, the A-frame and the Dog Walk.  I figured the hardest part would be #13, which is to take the A-frame and not the tunnel after coming out of a different tunnel.  I was wrong.  We had trouble choose the tunnel right in the beginning. We also passed the Dog Walk and had to come back.  The rest of the run was great, a smidge slow...SCT was 59.45 and Oliver's time was 61.16!  That's 1.71 seconds OVER time!  So NQ here..first place, and a clean run, and I'll take that any day. 

Novice Weavers.  A first time event, and a first time disaster.  It went WAY south here folks.  You can see he's not focused when we get to the line.  He had a great start and NAILED the first set of weaves.  We came out of tunnel #5 and he lost his marbles.  He ran off, back to the start, through the first tunnel to get to something he smelled on the ground.  Eliminated.  We can't win them all..we need more practice for sure.

It wasn't a total bust of a day for sure!  One of our good friends and agility mates got a new title today.  They had their 3rd Qualifying Novice Hoopers run today, so Dixie the 3 legged dog earned her Novice Hoopers Title.  Way to go Dixie and Tim! 

He says "I tried hard Mama!"

Here's the breakdown. 

Novice Hoopers--Q (purple ribbon), 2nd place (red ribbon)

Novice Touch N Go--NQ, 1st place (blue ribbon)

Novice Weavers--Eliminated (boo!)

We had a great day.  It was great practice for the next trial.  We head to Springfield for the entire weekend in mid-July.  I'm super stoked.  I was nervous about the events we did today, but he handled them well, so I've got high hopes for Springfield.  

I have to work (lame) but everyone else have a good weekend. 

Jessica

To Agility And Beyond...

To Agility and BEYOND!!

We had a great first trial.  I couldn't have asked my OllieDog for anything more!
Team Rodgers got up very early to head out to the Douglas County Fairgrounds for the Trial.  We got out there about 730.  Got checked in, and tried to do some deep breathing.
I was terribly nervous.
I'm glad the run order is Elite, Open, and then Novice.  Oliver is in Novice..so I got to watch some other handlers first.
However the course changes between levels, and since Oliver is tiny..and the size order for today was small to tall..we were the first dog to run in the Novice group.


Our first event was Jumpers.  Which is all jumps, and maybe 1 tunnel.  The course was fairly easy for novices, only 2 front crosses.  He stayed with me the whole time.  We had a Qualifying run, and took 1st place.  He came in 7 seconds under Standard Course Time(SCT).  So, we are well on our way to a Novice Jumpers Title.


Our second event was Tunnelers...which is all tunnels.  The course arrangement is the same for all levels.  The SCT is shorter for the higher levels..making it more difficult.  The name of the game here is speed.  Unfortunately, Oliver didn't quite have it.  He DID stay with me, and he DID do everything in perfect order..but we came in 15 seconds over SCT..so we didn't qualify.  If you watch, you can see we had a bit of trouble with tunnel #7..he passed it originally, but we were able to get it..that's what ate into some of our time.


There were 2 rounds of Tunnelers, so we entered both.  The second course was a bit shorter, but had some trickier handling patterns.  I primed Oliver with a little hotdog treat just before we entered the ring (no treats allowed on the course or in the ring) hoping to light his fire a bit and get some more speed out of him.  He was a bit quicker, and it was a smoother run for us I think...less calling him on and off tunnels..it just flowed better..I had high hopes of making time, but sadly we were 6 seconds over SCT.  DAMN!! 6 stupid seconds.  We're going to get them next time!  We did take 2nd place again.

We earned several ribbons..here's the break down.
Novice Jumpers--Q (purple ribbon), 1st place (blue ribbon)
Novice Tunnelers 1--NQ, 2nd place (red ribbon)
Novice Tunnelers 2--NQ, 2nd place (red ribbon)

He looks so happy!  I'm a proud proud mama today..Happy Mother's Day to me...and to all the other mothers out there.

Jessica (Mama to a happy Agility Star!)

The Backyard and Agility Equipment

So it's been a while since I showed you anything we've been doing outside.

I thought you could better appreciate why it's taken us so long to whip it into shape out there if I showed you what the previous owners left us with.

Bring on the before and after!!

Before..this was taken a day or two after we closed on the house. As you can tell, they did nothing that entire spring. We bought the house in March, but didn't close on it until May. There are actually 3 stumps there..under the weeds.

After. There are no stumps. And no weeds. Jonathan built a wonderful cover for our basement window wells...to keep out the leaves, and critters. You can sort of see in the before picture that it was mostly mud in front of the bed, and moss had sort of taken over there...but we took a little effort and planted some grass...and it's taking off as you can see.

Before. This makes me cry! This is a hodgepodge of trashy rock, and that is blue rug juniper planted on top of that dirt pile...yes, it's dead. That pile of rock and dirt the previous people were trying to pass as landscaping goes all the way around the back stoop.

After! Oh my God I can't believe how much better this is! We just finished this today. It's been a terribly long process. My sister and I pulled out all the dead weeds and plant life last fall. This spring Jonathan loaded up all the rock and dirt (2 truck loads full!) and got rid of it. We leveled it off and edged it in. Today we put down the pebbles. We're not done yet, but we could leave it just the way it is and no one would complain. We want to put in a water fountain and some semi-large boulders, and maybe a gazing ball or something.

And don't worry, we're going to put something over the stoop to make it pretty, probably a retaining wall sort of deal...but it's just such an improvement I couldn't wait to share.

We've been busy on the agility front as well. We just finished the A-frame today. Jonathan built it perfectly!

We've started our Weaves class, here's our weave poles. Oliver is pretty good at doing it with a treat lead, he hasn't quite got the concept of doing it on his own..but we'll get there in no time.

I've got a few things in the wings, a birthday card, well actually 2 of them, and I'm kicking up Halloween card production, so stick around there's a lot more going on.

Jessica

Team Rodgers Backyard Agility Course

So I haven't been crafting very much lately, but I'm hoping to get to some things while I'm off this week. I mostly have scrapbooking to get to...I'm way behind!

But I have a perfectly good excuse as to why I haven't been blogging lately either...

Here it is in all it's glory!

Oliver has started agility, and Jonathan has started building a course. So far we have 3 jumps, a tunnel, a pause box and a tire jump. He's in the 5 week class "Jumps and Tunnels" and he's amazing. It's only been 1 class, but he's at the top and I want to keep him there. He loves it so much. The next class is "Weaves and more" by more I hope they mean alcohol, the weaves look really difficult and I'm not sure how he'll do with them.

But for now he loves the tunnel.

And the tire jump...I know it's not a tire..it's a pool noodle..which is cheaper and lighter than a tire.

He can do jumps all day.

He can hardly wait to start the next run across the yard. We've just started so everything is still in a straight line, but he rarely misses an obstacle. Hopefully in the next class or two we'll learn how to turn things. I'm hoping to make the course go around the yard, we'll need all the room we can get once we get a few more obstacles.

Jessica