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

Birthday Card Catch Up

Man! I am really terrible at this whole blog thing.

To be honest, I haven't had much time to craft, or anything else for that matter.  Team Rodgers is up to their eyeballs in weekend activities.  Lately dog stuff has consumed a fair amount of time..next week is the big Agility Trial..so be on the look out for that.  

On the home front, we've gotten new kitchen counter tops..and we couldn't be happier!  I'll post some before and after shots of that.  We're also knee deep in refinishing our hardwood floors...I can't give a final report yet...day 1 didn't go so well..but there will be more on that as well.

I'm backlogged in cards.  I have been making a few.

Today is a helping of birthday cake, er, card. 

 I made this one for my friend at work. 

She's getting older, like really old, so I thought I'd bring back the color combos from her youth.  Well I used my youth as an example.  I loved bright pink and blue and such when I was about 13 I think.  Who am I kidding, I still love this combo!

 All the paper is Stampin Up, because that's how I roll. 

Hopefully all that cake..er cards will hold you over until I can get something else up here.  I've got a birthday card from Jon's birthday too..so we've got the potential to have a few posts this week...

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend..looks like Fall is finally here for real in KC.

Jessica

Midwest Balloon Fest 8-11-12

Team Rodgers has a pretty exciting weekend.
On Saturday we packed up all our agility stuff and took it to Uncle Matt's house to practice.  He's got a bigger backyard than we do, and we wanted to practice some of the new commands we've been learning.  Well it ended up being a bit warmer that we anticipated, and Oliver was having none of it.
That night we went to the Midwest Balloon Fest out at the Great Mall of the Great Plains.

It was definitely something to see..if you didn't make it out this year, I suggest you go next year for sure.

I love hot air balloons.  I've always wanted to go up in one.  Hint hint husband. 

There were about a trillion people there, which surprised me, since I've never even heard of this thing before. 

They had tethered balloon rides for $5, and it seemed like everyone was in line for it.  It was sort of lame, they only went up about 15 feet or so. 

The festival took up one whole side of the mall.  They had military stuff, a rock wall, and helicopter rides.

As the sun began to set, they started filling up the shapes balloons.  

It's Nemo!

Actually this balloon's name is Wally..and most of our photos have him in them.

This dragon was huge compared to the other balloons. 

We got the watch them inflate this balloon.  You'd be surprised how quickly they fill them. 

Fire!!

They filled the Farmers balloon so quickly it was swaying a little before they got it under control, it kept bumping Wally. 

Jon and Wally.

Thumbs up for fire!

Once they got them all filled they started some music and the MC talked a little about the balloon pilots.  He told them all when and what type of burn they would be doing.  The audience got to participate in the count downs to the all burns or twinkle burns.  

That is some big fire. 

It's a all burn!

It was really neat as it got darker, you could see the entire balloon glow.

We watched them deflate Wally.  He was one of the bigger balloons, so it took some time.  It take a whole team of volunteers to get him folded up and put away. 

Me, Jon, and Wally.  Pretend the photo isn't grainy.  It was taken with the front camera on my phone..cut it some slack. 

We had a good time.  It's definitely worth a trip if you've never been.  

Everyone was so exhausted from our big day Saturday, we all slept until almost noon on Sunday.  It was wonderful!

Jessica

Lego Birthday Card

So, I'm back on the card wagon.

I had a request to make a birthday card for a little guy who is having a Lego birthday.

So, I made a Lego card.  It was going to be easy when I started..turned out to be a mathematical nightmare. I guess we all need a little fraction to decimal practice every now and then. 

I used my Cricut to cut out the letters for his name, and a teeny tiny stamp for the Happy Birthday.

 I also used the Cricut for the 9..he's going to be nine. Cool right?

I hope he likes it..he's 9, I'm sure he will :-)

Team Rodgers is gearing up for a little excitement this weekend, we're planning to go to the Midwest Balloon Fest..weather permitting.  

So look for hopefully some nice pictures of it.

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