From Mia & her pack:

It was a very fun trial by Contact Point.  I love the location, despite the less-than-ideal footing and the incline.  DAMs are such fun and I can't recommend giving them a try enough.  If nothing else, it's fun to have an excuse to say DAM a lot when talking about courses.  ;-)      I had two DAM teams.  I can't remember the name of Finn's, but his other teammates were Kate Moureaux with Driven and Kathy Marshall with Ricki.  Max was on the team of GVDCers was a Blonde with the Blues with Diane and the always impressive Gidget and Anne with the always enthusiastic Zip.  Both teams did great in the overall standings and qualified.  Finn's team was 5th and the GVDC team was 6th (Max's fault we weren't higher, but more on that later).      

For me, days don't get much better than the Saturday of that show.  Walking the courses with teammates was very informative and a lot of fun.  Max was perfect.  Seriously, he was perfect, I slowed him down a couple times.  In the DAM, he was the 3rd dog overall with a 2nd in Snooker, 4th in Standard and 5th in Gamblers.  Good boy.  In the regular classes, he was 4th in Standard, Qed in Gamblers and won Snooker!  Yay!    Finn was a good boy too.  For a brief moment, I had his startline fixed by putting him in a down stay.  He had good runs in the DAM classes, nothing great, but no E's.  In Standard he broke his startline and I planted my feet.  The hesitation made him take a moment to reflect on his self-release and we went to the dogwalk with him REALLY listening.  The rest of the course was pretty good.  There was a stand-off at the table, but it wasn't terrible.  He did Q with a 3rd. 

The highlight of the weekend for Finn was getting his 2nd Masters Gamblers leg!  Just recently have I felt he should be getting the gambles.  We've had some bad luck and I've mucked up a couple, but he was so good on Saturday.  He even took 2nd in the class!   Star only had Adv. Snooker on Saturday.  She did a great job in the opening.  When she's moving, she's very light and responsive.  In the closing, she really moved ahead of me when needed and nailed a great weave entry!  I sent her over a 1 before getting to 6, but she still Qed (4th) and finished her AS title.  It's Masters Snooker for Star.      

Sunday with Max wasn't the best.  I totally screwed him up in the DAM Jumpers class and did the cardinal sin of DAM...sending a dog off-course.  Poor Max, he really was trying.  He did a good leg in the Relay with a knocked bar over a jump that I had told myself "scream all you want, just don't let him go off-course".  In Masters Jumpers he had a knocked bar at the triple (going up hill), but was so good in the zig-zag-don't go in the tunnel-closing.  Our Grand Prix run wasn't our best.  He had some wide turns and was pretty pokey in sections.  Still, he did Q and even took 3rd in the class for a big, pretty ribbon!  Yay!    

Finn was a good boy on Sunday.  He had a knocked bar in both DAM and Masters Jumpers, but both runs were excellent efforts.  Finn did do a great leg on his team's Relay.  His Grand Prix was good, despite a fault at the teeter.  It was weird.  After I saw 3 dogs fall-off it (including Zip and Bubbles), I knew I really needed to support it with Finn.  I was right there and when it was dropping, he just fell off the side onto my leg.  It happens and he still picked up a Q.     

Miss Star started with Gamblers.  The gamble was the double to a tunnel, out to weaves over a tire.  Our opening was a jump to the dogwalk.  For the first time, Miss Star did the dogwalk on the first try!  YAY!!!!  It wasn't a particularly fast dogwalk, but in the past, her teeter issues have had her questioning the dogwalk.  She did some great weaves in the opening as well, two A-frames without a proper "touch" (we'll be working more on that) and a second dogwalk that she galloped across with a great "touch".  When the whistle blew, I was still thinking about how she hadn't stopped at the bottom of the A-frame.  When I snapped back to the course at hand, I was able to send her into a tunnel to get some momentum for the gamble.  Baby Star did the gamble perfectly and took 3rd in the class!  Good girlie!  Our Jumpers run was filled with chaos and eventually an off-course, but she was really trying.      

Some other runs that stuck out from people that haven't sent me a show report....  Rita and Mollie had a beautiful Standard on Saturday.  Rita also did a great job pushing Pilot.  Paula and Vinnie faced some challenges, but ended the weekend with a terrific Jumpers run!  Go Vinnie!     

~Mia

From Anne & Zip:

 Zip had a lot of fun and successful moments at the this trial.  This was going to be the first time Zip and I ever competed on a DAM team, and Mia with Max and Diane with Gidget were our teammates for our cool team "A Blonde with the Blues."  I was feeling less than my best early Saturday morning before the trial, I called Mia and told her that along with me coming to the trial late, could she please think of a Snooker course for me in case I don't get to walk it first?

By the time I pulled up to the trial Zip and I had 5 dogs before our run.  Mia ran up to me and pulled me to the Snooker ring, and quickly explained the course I was going to run (in 3 dogs now) and I must add that Mia is usually always calm, cool and collected even under stressful circumstances.  I have never seen her move so fast or talk so quickly, I really got there late and made her panic.  (Sorry again, Mia!)

So I thought I might have my Snooker course memorized, I jumped Zip maybe 3 times over the warm-up fence, and it is our turn to go to the start line.  I go out onto the Team Snooker course that i did not walk and I am trying to remember Mia's directions from 3 minutes earlier.  Overall Zip was great and we made it through the opening and well into the closing.  It was a pretty decent Snooker run considering I was very unprepared and feeling a tad sick still.  But we got some points for our team and I was happy with how well Zip was listening to me.

Overall Zip was pretty responsive the entire weekend, we had many bobbles but never got ourselves eliminated in any of the DAM Team classes.  I think one of the higlights of the weekend was our team Relay run, I had never done one before and was learning the rules as we went along.  You have to have all three dogs in the ring, leashes and collars off and they must stay off from when the first dog starts until the last dog finishes.  Dogs can get pretty excited and wiggily while watching other dogs do agility, Zip was great though.  He remianed in his down-stay all during the excitement and then had a very nice Relay run. 

Zip and I had a wonderful experience in our very first DAM team, and we finished 6th overall out of 23 teams and we now have qualified in DAM for the USDAA Nationals in November.  We were thrilled to have two great teammates and I like to think of us as "the little team that could."  We plugged away all weekend and did very well overall.

Zip got to celebrate later in the week, as he turned 6 years old on Thursday!

All in all a great weekend.

:-)  Anne

From Diane & Gidget:

Gidget and I had a successful weekend. Some very good runs that were non-qualifying, but runs to be proud of none the less. This was my first Masters Standard run with Gidget. She did great.

I was very proud to be on a team with Anne with Zip and Mia with Max. We did really well and I enjoyed working on the strategy of each course with Anne and Mia. We were 4th in the relay out of 23 teams, and managed 6th place overall which was qualifying. We are now qualified for the nationals.

I also had a qualifying round in Grand Prix, that is my second so I am now qualified to run in the nationals in Grand Prix this year. I also came in 3rd in this event and I was very pleased. It was a great run with only the last jump down (it was a triple and we pretty much took everything down). There were no clean runs in my jump height.

The 3rd event offered at the nationals is Steeplechase and I am already qualified in that event for this year. So now we only have to hope the nationals will be in Arizona again as it was last year. We all assume so, but we don’t know for sure. I am relieved to get the qualifying done early so I can have some fun, no pressure, runs until November.

Diane

From Susan & Cooper:

We got his third Q in P1 Standard and 2nd Place!  He's in PII snooker and standard now.  Bob ran him Sunday and almost made his 3rd Q in P1 Jumpers, but the Coop knocked a bar ... he did have the fastest time though!

The best part about these shows is the encouragement and support from club members and fellow participants.  Thanks everybody!

Susan and Cooper

From Bob & Kadi:

Kadi & I continued to progress at the Fillmore show. Saturday's Standard run was fast, but had an off-course (my fault!), Snooker was great and had her best weaves in quite a while- very fast. Sunday she ran Grand Prix well, I had a course mixup, Gamblers she ran well but just missed the Gamble, Jumpers she did OK, but 2 bars down, still fast enough to take 4th.

I also ran Cooper & Bubbles Sunday. Bubbles ran great for me in Gamblers, she did the Gamble fine, but the whistle blew just before she did the last obstacle. The obstacle before was a tunnel and she rolled around for a good 5-6 seconds causing the delay. Grand Prix she ran very well, except she slipped off the teeter and rolled around in the chute. Cooper just missed his Gamble as well, popped out of the 10th weave pole in Grand Prix, and his Jumpers run was the fastest in his class, but he dropped 1 bar and took 4th.

Congrats to all that did well, including the teams that qualified for Nationals!

Bob & Kadi Lulu  

From Barbara & Violet:

We drove up Friday night, tent trailer in tow, and found a great camping spot right across the creek from the rings. I know, its only an hour from home, but I'll use any excuse to camp out and I love this park! I also brought the video camera and recorded a number of runs of fellow GVDC'ers so I'll post some of them as soon as I get a spare moment, or couple hours. (So time consuming!)

It had been about a year since our last USDAA and I was a little rusty on the rules of some of the games. This was a good weekend for us however, she qualified in 2 of our 4 runs. I was worried about a paw injury, but her limp was better and there was no sign of a problem.

On Saturday we started with PII Standard and it was so much fun! She was not as fast (relatively speaking!) as usual, but very accurate. We had a close call with a tunnel-out-of-sequence moment, but she called off easily. We took 1st and a Q. We then had Snooker and I had what I thought was a great, but a little tricky, plan. (I usually struggle with narrowing down a plan in that game!!!) Well, despite my great plan, I got a little lost and missed our 4th "red." Apparently the judge didn't even notice, but when I just stood there with the "duuuhhh" look on my face, she realized what happened. She was so good natured about it, even after I had earlier almost mowed her down!

On Sunday we were the 4th dog on the line shortly after 8 am. I'm a morning person anyway, so this was great! It was Gamblers and I knew right away that my little "Velcro" would not go out to the weaves in the gamble since they were about 10 feet from the line. But we had a great time in the opening and it was even more fun since some friends had come to see us run. In the afternoon we had to wait for the million Grand Prix dogs to run before they would start our Jumpers ring. When they finally opened the ring, we had a great run. It was very smooth and flowing. There were 2 spots that I knew could cause a problem for us... both back crosses. We just don't have them nailed down yet. So, I compensated on the first one by just haulling butt around a jump for a front cross, but the last one was in the closing and I was going to try to back cross her. That was the plan anyway, but timing was not with us and we almost ran into eachother. Graceful in not a word one could use, but qualifying is!

Ivy had some great practice being good in the X-Pen and enjoyed her front row seat for the action in the Masters ring. Her focus improves every day. We had the camp packed up and were home by 4:30. What a terrific weekend!!!

Barb, Violet and the Up-N-Coming Ivy!

From Rita & her pack:

Saturday:
Molly – my little stinker bug is back!!! Molly was on fire both days and I could tell she had a great time running too. Not once did she even think about leaving the course – perhaps the jackpot (cheese) before and after are working.  

Our standard run on Saturday was great fun. The course was a nice flowing course so I felt confidant I would not get lost. My goal for this event was to try and focus on my skills– standing tall, NO CLAPPING when not needed, less unneeded words, to say a few. Molly was the 2^nd dog out so it was good to not be the first dog for a change; I was able to get some great jackpotting in before we stepped out. I stood tall and I gave the course to Molly trusting her to do her job and I mine. She had wonderful weaves and a great touch at the bottom of the A frame with her tail wagging from side to side. The best part was her table down, once down I walked straight to the next jump never looking back at her – trusting her to stay down, and she did – wow, that was great!! After her great table down, I think I was in shock since the next obstacle was the jump then teeter, but as she approached the teeter I didn’t say “easy” I don’t even think I said teeter. She was running pretty fast and I could see she was not slowing down. Flying off she went landing on all fours and just a few Molly feet away from the tunnel entrance. I was happy to see that she was not hurt and that she did not even realize what she did – whew!!! That could have been a big set back – scary teeter thing. I asked the judge what to do and she said, “go on.” So we did and we received First Place.

I decided to not stress myself out if Pilot did not want to play a little ball before the run or chase the toy. He is allowed to be nervous too and he is who he is and cheese works just as good if not better to keep his focus on me before the run. I was happy that he was not stressed and happily ran the course with me. He got his weave entry but I must have bobbled mid way since he missed one. I started over and he did get them all with no problem.

At the table I thought I could do the same as I did with Molly, nope, he is my velcro boy, and once I started to move away so did he. At the collapsed tunnel he went around but I did get him to go through. We finish and received the 4^th place!!! In Snooker I was very happy how Pilot was staying with me on this game. He was good at watching were I wanted him to go and I tried to watch my arm direction trying to be clear. We managed to get thru the closing sequence # 5 before the bell rang. It was a fun course.

Which put us in First Place and Q!!!!

Sunday:
For Jumpers Molly was again on fire and was happy to be running, she placed First and Q!!!

Pilot was fun in jumpers and I actually was running faster then he was and had to look over my shoulders to keep an eye on him. He was doing good until the corner jump. I am not sure why he did not want to jump it–but I was determined that he had to jump it- we walk around twice before he finally jumped it and finished, in 4^th place!!! He was happy and did enjoy the fetch game afterwards.In Gamblers, d espite Pilot not jumping a few jumps and that I ran with him thru the gamble we racked up enough points and finished with in time to receive 4^th Place!! It was a great weekend and it felt good to be back at trailing after a long rainy winter.

Blur had fun socializing as did TeaCup.  

Rita