Agility in Sedona

I took Frankie and Mo up to Sedona in June for an agility trial. It was a gorgeous weekend, in a beautiful location, with awesome friends. You don't get a backdrop like this for most trials!Frankie:
It's been so long since we've done any agility. We don't go to class anymore and our trial availability is so sporadic. Sometimes I'm amazed that my dogs even remember how to jump! I was able to take the dogs to practice once at Jim's the week before the trial to refresh their memories. Frankie did great. But, Frankie is always great at practice and always cracked-out at trials...so my expectations were low. Based on those low expectations, I would say Frankie did okay. He Q'd 2 out of 10.

It was me who did terrible. For my last 3 runs on Sunday, I forgot the course. All 3 times. It was humiliating. I usually only do one day of a trial weekend. I guess I don't have the mental stamina for 2 full days of agility. Two of those runs I blew were Frankie's jumpers runs. He always Q's in jumpers. Unless I lead him off course. Twice in a row. Boo. If I wasn't a moron, he would have Q'd 4 out of 10.

One major accomplishment - we Q'd in Beginner Trigility! Woo hoo!! Yep, Frankie is a specialist level dog who never could get out of beginner in Trigility. It took him FIVE YEARS! :) Thanks to my random partners for helping us reach this milestone!

Frankie jumping for joy that he will no longer be mocked by his Specialist level peers:
Mo:
The last time I practiced with Mo, she was awesome, doing all the contacts like a pro and almost looking like she was enjoying herself! It was beautiful...and yet she shut down again at the next trial. This practice was horrible. She flew off the teeter and scared the bejeezus out of herself. She fell off the dog walk (yikes!) and scared the bejeezus out of me. She, luckily, did not get hurt. I had zero expectations for Mo at this trial. She blew my expectations away! We had one AWESOME, PERFECT, WONDERFUL run in jumpers. Of course, she was still Slo-Mo, but she was actually moving fast for her. I had my hopes up for her first-ever Q, and I knew that if this run didn't earn one, then she'd never earn one. Alas, no Q. :( When my Slo-Mo runs her very fastest, even with the extra time allowed for being physically challenged and a veteran, she still goes over time by many, many seconds.

Her other events were disastrous. She had to be coaxed to go in the tunnel. She did the weaves, but then shut down and refused any contacts. The fastest she ever moved was after the run was complete - then she'd hustle speedy-quick to the safety of her crate. Poor Mo.

And so I have conceded the fact that Mo is not an agility dog. She is officially retired. Agility helped her gain confidence, especially with strangers and noisy situations, which was the goal, but it is just not something she enjoys. I don't see any future benefits to be gained for her by continuing to ask her to do it.

She may never have gotten a Q in agility, but she sure is pretty:
If you are looking for Q's, don't look at my dogs...look at Vickie's dogs, Conor and Kaylie. Here they are chilling with Frankie, Sheryl and me:
Let's take a look at how many ribbons Frankie and Mo earned this weekend. Two measly ribbons:

Now let's look at how many ribbons Conor and Kaylie racked up. Show offs.

Want to become the most interesting person a dog has ever met? Never underestimate the power of kibble:Seriously. It is hypnotizing!

Wet. And Cold. And Wet.

This past weekend would have been a good weekend for some of Phoenix's renowned heat and sun. Unfortunately, Mother Nature thought it would be a good weekend for some cold and rain. And some wind. And some cold and rain. Ergh.

On Saturday, I had an agility trial in Tempe with Frankie and Mo. We camp out with our friend Sheryl at trials. She has all the amenities you could ask for...tent, walls, heater. By the end of the day, even this fabulous set up wasn't enough to battle the wet and cold. The day started out okay, there was an absolutely beautiful sunrise, and we thought perhaps we might get lucky and have the rain pass us by.However, later that morning it started to get windy. Really windy. There was so much dust flying around you couldn't even see across the ring. Mo did all her runs in the early morning, so she was done before the wind picked up. This is a good thing because she can't even make time under perfect conditions, if she had to deal with wind or rain, it would take her an hour to finish a course! I thought maybe we'd get a Q this time - she ran (okay...jogged. Oh, okay...walked quickly) through her whole jumpers run. Still, despite all the extra time she is allowed as a veteran and physically challenged dog, she was still over by 3.5 seconds. Slo-Mo, for sure! On her gamblers run, she did an A-frame for me. I was so happy!! This is the first time in a trial that she has even willingly touched a contact! To get a Q she needed 15 points in the first 30 seconds. The course could not have been set up any better for her. A jump (1), an A-frame (5!), the tunnel under the A-frame two times (3 x 2) and then a jump (1). BUZZ! Ergh! Only 13 points were accumulated. I don't think she'll ever get a Q!

Frankie did pretty well, for Frankie. He Q'd 3 out of 5 runs - gamblers and 2 jumpers. I thought he Q'd on one of his standard runs but he was over time. Yes, he spazzed out a bit and wasted time running around like a crack-dog, but I got him back before he went off course.

When we were waiting for our first standard run, a tarp from someone's set-up got stolen by the wind. Frankie and I were right in the path of the flying tarp. Like an idiot, I just stood there watching a full-size blue plastic tarp coming right at us. It was about 3 feet off the ground and as it passed over Frankie's head, he spooked (wouldn't you?!) and simultaneously cowered down and jumped to the left. When he took his next few steps, he was very limpy-limpy and when he was standing he wouldn't put much weight on his back right foot. I decided to let him run to see how it went. He felt no pain (crack-dog, remember) out on the course, so I guess he's ok. He hasn't been limping since but I'll keep an eye on him. I can't really afford another vet visit - we already spent over $300 on him this week!

Soon I will get to the point about getting wet and cold, like the post title alludes to, but I'm gonna digress to the vet visit first. Last week Frankie started being an over-urinator. Seriously, he would pee every hour and pee for a long time each time. On Thursday night I counted 41 seconds of continuous pee. That's insane! Especially when he had peed every hour for the last 5 hours! He went through the same thing last year around this time and the vet found nothing wrong with him then. Now the problem is back so I took him to a different vet. Yet another digression: Frankie hated everyone at the vet! The receptionist, the tech and the vet were all greeted with growls. We put a muzzle on him for the exam! Wtf? When did he become such an asshole? Anyway, they tested his pee and did a blood test. He has a slight urinary infection most likely caused by the over-peeing as opposed to being the cause of the over-peeing. The blood test came up with nothing. Ergh. $312 and no answers.

Back to wet and cold now....

After all of Mo's runs and half of Frankie's runs, Saturday's weather turned crazy! Full wind and full rain. Tents were flying away. They had to stop entering scores in the computer because the scorekeeper's tent was one of the ones that blew away and broke. Some of the bigger dogs were getting blown off the dog walk. (Scary!) I moved Frankie and Mo into the car because the walls of Sheryl's set-up were no longer keeping the rain out. The floor was a huge puddle. And yet...people stayed! Why? Cuz dog people are crazy! I guess I'm a crazy dog person, too, cuz I stayed. Frankie ran both his jumpers courses in the pouring rain. He didn't care at all. He loves jumpers and no stinkin' wind or rain are going to stop him! Finally the trial organizers decided to cancel the final class and give vouchers for a free run at an upcoming trial to all of us crazy, wet, cold people who stayed. Me and my crazy friends, soaking wet and freezing cold:
On Sunday was the PetSmart Charities PetWalk. It was a 5K walk and contests. I love contests! I dressed Frankie and Georgie for the costume contest. I didn't think we'd win because their costumes are cheesy ones bought at Target, but I love a contest. I was holding on to hopes for winning Best Trick (Frankie...are you a boy or a girl?) and the Fastest Pet/Pet Parent sprint with Georgie. I was very excited about her short legs beating everyone else! I brought Miranda with us so she could win Most Unique Participant with either Sammy, the ferret or Sophie, the rat. Well, we thought she was going to win until we saw a lady with two goats and another lady with a pig in a stroller! At 9:00 am, it was almost clear out. Not sunny, but not raining and it looked like maybe we'd finished with the rain the day before. The costume contest was before the walk. Frankie was a bumble bee and Georgie was a banana split. Not surprisingly, we did not win. No big deal. The real contests were at noon! The Walk had tons of vendors and activities and 150 shelter dogs up for adoption. It was supposed to go from 9am - 2:30 pm. We checked out a couple vendors before the walk, but saved the activities (agility course, a fetch area, paw-print painting) and most of the other vendors to keep us occupied between the walk and the contests.

We started the walk at 10:00 am. Still not raining, not too windy, just a little chilly. I kept the dogs' costumes on to keep them warm. The first two miles were fine. Then, it started raining. Then, the wind picked up as we turned the corner for the last mile. Ugh! It was raining hard! And it was cold!! The wind and rain were blowing right into our faces. We were a mile away from the park and 1.5 miles from the car. We had no choice but to keep walking. It was miserable! Cold and wet and wet and cold. I was wondering if I could win a sprint contest with soaking wet jeans on. Miranda, a girl after my own heart, commented during the worst of the rain, "Maybe it's raining too hard for the pig and the goats and I'll win the contest." I was kind of sad though because I didn't want to win any contest by default!

As the last mile progressed (very slowly), my hands turned into icicles. And Pat turned into The Grinch. He hates being wet. He didn't stop when we got back to the park but kept walking right to the car. Miranda and I stopped to ask if the contests were still going to happen or if they were canceled. Nothing had been canceled, but there was no way Pat was going to stick around for 40 minutes, so we sadly left the event and went to the car. We were soaked all the way through, we were frozen solid. The poor ferret was shivering like crazy and Frankie and Georgie fell asleep immediately on the floor of the car, curled up together for warmth , so it was probably best that we left. But still....I wish I would have stayed. I wanted to do the contests!

I was so sad for the organizers of the event, all the vendors and the rescues with the adoptable dogs. They all lugged all their crap out there, they planned for months, they put up 150 temporary chainlink runs for the adoptathon...so much work and it was ruined by the rain and cold. The adoption event wasn't even scheduled to start until after the walk, so I don't know if they adopted out any dogs. Heart-breaking. I still can't think about the event without getting completely depressed about it. All that work and all their high hopes dashed. Ugh.

Wet and cold. Yuck! Phoenix, I love you for your heat and sun. Could you please stop being like the rest of the country and get back to what you are good at? HEAT AND SUN, PLEASE!!

My 3 Dogs: Agility Update

We all went up to Pinetop over Labor Day weekend for an agility trial.

GEORGIE: Georgie doesn't do agility. She got to hang out in the x-pen all day, whining and crying and being a pain in the ass.

MO:
This trial was Mo's big debut! Our hopes were high! She'd been doing great at Jim's. Her confidence was up. We were doing full advanced courses, very slowly of course, but completing them! I thought she might be ready.

I was wrong.

She didn't like it at all. She was nervous with all the people and all the activity. She acted as if she had NEVER seen a contact obstacle EVER before in her life. This is the furthest she went on any of the equipment:

No amount of cheerleading, begging, pleading or fake-treating would get her to go another step. This picture actually shows her at her bravest. Most of the time she wouldn't even touch the obstacle. She did a whole lot of the standing still, staring into space and pretending she was invisible like she did when we very first started classes. She did do a few jumps and perhaps a tunnel in every run, but we didn't complete more than 6 obstacles in any run on the first day.

Nevertheless, she was a hit with the crowd. Everyone loved her! After her first run, when I finally gave up and took her over the end jump, the whole crowd cheered for her....which had the unintended effect of scaring the bejeezus out of her. She tucked her tail and tried to run. After that, everyone realized what a "special" dog Mo is. They were super nice and gave her lots of room, moved slowly when near her and took their time trying to befriend her. Though I did have the feeling that people were tsk-tsking me behind my back for starting her in trials before she was ready. I was tsk-tsking myself, too.

I was hopeful that the second day would be better for her. She'd be a little more accustomed to the surroundings and she'd realize that all I was asking her to do was the same things we've worked on over and over again at Jim's house. I knew she could do it, I just needed to convince her that she could do it.

Yeah...not so much. She still refused all contacts, she refused some jumps, even. I tried to keep a positive attitude - maybe she'd do well in jumpers, which was our last run of the day. No contacts or tunnels! Perfect.

Here is her final run:


She started out so great - I thought for sure she was going to get a Q. Then at jump 4 and 5, she realized there were people around! And they were moving! YIKES! How can she be expected to go over a jump when there are moving people around?!?! But, finally....she finished a course! About an hour over time, but she did the whole thing! It wasn't anywhere close to how she does in class, but she did it.

FRANKIE:
I also had high hopes for Frankie to do well at this trial. He, too, has been doing great at Jim's, doing perfectly in fact! He is now SIX years old and should be outgrowing his crack-baby ways. I thought for sure he would qualify in more than half of his runs.

Again, I was wrong.

We only got 1 Q out of 10 runs. It was very depressing. He got all cracked out on every run! People enjoyed his antics, but I didn't. I even tried having Pat run him once to see if that would get him to pay attention. It almost worked - he completed 3/4 of the obstacles - which was a record for the weekend, but he still lost it and went zooming around the ring for awhile.

Even when he's on crack, Frankie still excels at Jumpers. We always qualify. Except at this trial. Ergh. I must have been leading too far out because the jump I'm pointing at here:
was completely skipped:
and he took the next jump instead:
Ergh.

I have to admit that by the end of the trial, I was completely disheartened. I have put four years and thousands of dollars into Frankie - to no use. The dog definitely has a screw loose and I am a terrible handler.

Pat and I were supposed to stay Sunday night so we could hike and explore the area on Monday, but instead I insisted that we just load up and go home. I was too grumpy to stay. :(

PABLO:

Huh? We already went through My 3 Dogs. Who is Pablo??

My friend Vickie found a chihuahua puppy a few months back. No owner was located so she named him Pablo and let him stay. Pablo looks out of place with her pack of Aussies, but he fits right in with my pack of tan dogs! They are like a little family of tan:

3-Legged Agility

I'm taking Mo to her first agility trial over Labor Day. I'm not sure if she's ready to trial, but I guess we'll see.

It's been hard this summer because she really hates the heat. Frankie couldn't care less if it's hot...he'll play all day long. But Mo, she shuts down when it gets too hot. I was practicing with her on a course that went out and back and out again. Mo went out with me, she went back with me, but when I went out again, Mo ran right into her x-pen in the shade instead. :) I hope it's the heat and not a dislike of agility. I guess we'll see that, too. The trial is up north in Pinetop so it should be nice and cool.

She's already super-slow to begin with, but add in the heat and she slows down to barely a walk. However, last night we got to practice when it was fairly cool out and she did so well! She was almost running even. Check it out (I hope you've got some time because even at an almost-run, she is still Slo-Mo):




You can tell she is still afraid of the noise of the teeter. And I forgot in the middle of the run that she still doesn't do off-side weaves so I had to stop her so I could get on the right side. It sure is a different experience running Mo compared to Frankie!!

And here is Frankie doing the same course in half the time:

Funny Math and a TITLE!

Ok, I know everyone has seen that mass-forwarded email with the funny answers from math tests. It's been making the FW: rounds for years. However, no matter how many times I see this one, it cracks me up every time!
While I'm here on the blog, I guess have a second or two to tell you that I can almost die now. One of the few remaining items on my to-do-before-I-die list is to get an advanced agility title on a dog. Since we've been at it for almost FOUR YEARS now, it was looking unlikely that Frankie would be that dog. Oh, ye of little faith! (Or maybe that should be: Oh, me of little faith?)

YAY! He did it!

There was a mini-trial over Memorial Day weekend and Frankie did amazingly well!! He got the 2 Q's he needed to earn his Specialist Jumpers Award!

Jumping:

In other exciting Frankie agility news, he finally got enough Q's to move up from the intermediate level into the advanced level in standard agility!!! This is pretty damn close to a miracle, folks! But to make sure that everyone knew what was what, on his very first standard run as a high-falutin' Specialist dog, Frankie pulled the usual crack-boy routine and ran around like crazy instead of doing the course I was asking him to do. Welcome back, Frankie! We missed you for a minute or two while you were out there behaving!

Wussy-boy hiding from the rain from the misters (but still very optimistic that a treat might be coming his way from somebody!):
Now I just need to bowl a 200 game and get my ass to Australia or New Zealand...and then it's off the glue factory for me.

Mini Updates

• My financial solvency is being threatened. Ugh. Our renters have moved out and we need to find new renters ASAP. Paying two mortgages is going to kill me. If you know anyone who is looking to rent a house in Phoenix (Glendale, technically), send them to http://rprentals.blogspot.com/. Thanks.
  
  
• Frankie competed in a Top Dog contest yesterday at the PetSmart Charities PetWalk. He didn't win. They had to compete in 3 events - costume, trick and vocalization. I think the judges gave me some points on 'creativity of costume' since they all laughed when I said he was dressed as a coyote. His trick was the best of all the competitors and he even did it on the first command. We did "Are you a boy or a girl" seen here. However, we got a big fat zero for vocalization because Frankie happens to be silent. Really, he only barks when someone comes in our house, which is impossible to replicate on stage at a park. Bummer. But the whole crowd and the judges laughed at his trick, so that was cool.
  
  
• Saturday night when we were driving home, there was a stray dog by our neighborhood park. I made Pat turn around so we could try to capture him. I was on the verge of panicking, too, because I thought for a minute it was Frankie. I was freaking out that he got out. How could he get out? Why is he 6 blocks from home? OMG! Then I realized that 1) it wasn't Frankie and 2) it wasn't a dog. It was a coyote. In my neighborhood. I guess I'll get to stop complaining about feral cats soon. Hey, neighbors! Bring your cats inside!!!
  
  
• Frankie had an agility trial this weekend. He was a crack baby on a few of his runs. He calmed down and rocked the jumpers course, til I stutter-stepped in front of him causing him to drop a bar. Frickin' handlers always ruining everything! He did Q in one of his standard runs, so it wasn't all a waste.
  
  
• I am failing poor Oliver. I am supposed to be teaching him to walk nicely on a leash and maybe do a few tricks. Instead I'm just enjoying him bouncing around the house like Tigger and cuddling with him when he gets tired. I need to get off my lazy ass and do it!
  
  
• I am also failing Christy. After last week's poor running performance in the GUR, I vowed that I would run 3 times this week and 3 times next week to prepare for our race on February 27th. I've only gone running once. Once! And it's not that I haven't had the time. I'm just in a state of lethargy that I can't shake. Also, soccer has been canceled a few times so I've not been getting any of my normal running in, either. I need to get off my lazy ass and do it! While I'm at it, I might want to go to the gym, too. Time for a confession....I've been to the gym only once in the past 2+ weeks. Good bye, abs. Hello, jello. :(
  
  
• Topic: Adult Content. Now, I don't have a thing for "boobies and swearing", but I really like what this guy Kevin has to say about what is real adult content. Don't worry, this link to his post is not taking you to a porn site!
  

BUSY!

I like to be busy. I like a full schedule. Good thing - since all of my weekends through April 24th are already booked!

Let's start with February... It seems like all of the urban adventure race planners chose February for their Phoenix races. Christy and I will be competing in them all. (Duh.) The one weekend in February that has no scheduled race happens to be an agility trial weekend. I couldn't have planned it better myself!

If you are in Arizona and you haven't tried an urban adventure race yet, you should do one (or all) of these February races! You don't have to be a good runner, you don't even have to be smart. All you need is a smart friend (which is why the most important members of the Jill/Christy team are actually Kiri and NFBF!!) and the willingness to have some fun. I have included the links to the Phoenix races for you. Find a partner, find a smart friend and DO IT!

The February Schedule:
Saturday, February 6th is the Scavenger Dash: http://www.scavengerdash.com/phx.html

Saturday, February 13th is the Great Urban Race: http://www.greaturbanrace.com/register10_phoenix.php

No race scheduled for Saturday, February 20th. I'll be taking Frankie to the DOCNA agility trial. Go, go, go, my little crackhead!
Sunday, February 21 is the PetSmart Charities PetWalk. I'll be walking for the Arizona Humane Society. If you want to donate, you can do so here.

Saturday, February 27th is the CitySolve Urban Race: http://www.citysolveurbanrace.com/2010/phoenix-urban-adventure-race.html. We'd better race this one fast. At 5:00 pm, we have to be dressed up and looking pretty at a wedding in Scottsdale!

The March Schedule:
Saturday, March 6 - Book Club Reunion Slumber Party!! YAY!!
Saturday, March 13 - DOCNA Agility Trial
Saturday, March 20 - Melillo March Madness Annual Birthday Party
Saturday, March 27 - Desert Rage Camp Verde Adventure Race (this is also the date of the Urban Dare, www.urbandare.com, but I've chosen to do the adventure race instead. Irene and I are going to try a fifth variety of boat to see if maybe the double plastic kayak will be the magic solution to my water-travel suckiness.)

The April Schedule:
Saturday, April 3 - DOCNA Agility Trial
Saturday, April 10 -Rafting Trip
Saturday, April 17 - DOCNA Agility Trial
Saturday, April 24 - um...nothing. Yet. Anyone want to fill this for me? :)

2010 So Far

It's only January 19th and my New Year's Resolution has already been broken. Oops.

So...let's talk about something else. Like, what I've been doing all year.

GAMES:
2010 started out with world domination, as usual. The New Year's Day All-Day Game Day tradition endures! This year, no king of strategy was named. David and Brad lost, and things were pretty even between my alliance with NFBF and Steven's alliance with Irene. After 6+ hours of Diplomacy, we called it a stalemate, a tie, then a truce. No 2010 winner. :(
After Diplomacy, we played Betrayal at the House on the Hill and I won that...so perhaps I will name myself the winner for 2010! Okay - I am the winner of 2010. Thus declared. (Yes, I hear you reminding me that I've already broken my NYR, so I'm probably not such a winner, after all. Thanks. Duly noted.)

DOGS:
The next weekend I took Frankie to an agility trial. Crackhead. But unlike last year at this time, I am not considering dropping out. I am instead happy for the one Q we got in jumpers and for the fun we had hanging out with our agility friends. Next trial with Crackhead is February 20!

SPORTS:
Ever since our big Thanksgiving weekend of bowling, Pat's been a gung-ho bowler. We've been a couple times already this year. Pat bought a new bowling ball so he's even more excited than before. He hasn't figured out how to effectively use it yet, but he did beat me one game out of 9 this year! And in one game out of 5, Jamie beat me. Not surprisingly, it was the same game...since I did so terribly. Will you believe me if I tell you that I LET them win that game? No? I didn't think so. In the interest of honesty, I will let you know that NFBF has also beat me one out of 3.

This weekend was the PF Chang's marathon and half-marathon. The best news of this year is that I did NOT run in it. I will never beat last year's fluke time of 2:05, so I think it best that I never try. And besides, running sucks! But cheering for running is super-duper fun!!! We went out to cheer Cookie on in the marathon and then drove to another location to cheer on Aimee and Pat's sister, Liz, in the half. I brought all the important cheerleader-y things...a goofy hat, a loud voice, a dog and a duck call.We (and by "we", I mean "I") cheered for the halfers for about 20 minutes before we saw Aimee go by. She loved my really loud cheering of AIMEE BUTLER! AIMEE BUTLER! (and by "loved", I mean "was totally embarrassed by"). A few minutes later we saw Liz go by. She legitimately loved our cheering. We stayed another 20 minutes or so to continue cheering on some more random strangers. I pretty much lost my voice with all the screaming.

We didn't have soccer because so many people were running the marathon or competing in a big soccer tournament. The losers who didn't get invited to play in the tournament got together for a game of flag football instead.

The Yellow Team:
The Red Team: The action!
I have no idea what the final score was...probably something around 70-70...and that was scoring by 1's.

RANDOM:
I can balance a pepper shaker on its edge.

BLAH

I know I haven't posted anything in a while. This is because my brain is empty. Completely empty. I've been stressed and grumpy and preoccupied lately. I think about things I could/should post but then I dismiss them because I really don't have anything of substance to say. I am a classic case of BLAH.

But because I feel completely guilty, here are some mini-updates to keep you mini-ly updated.

• We still have Chico. He was neutered, had lots of teeth extracted, had his cherry eye fixed and his hernia removed...all at once. Lots of procedures for a 7 pound dog. His eye doesn't want to heal, so we are keeping him a bit longer than planned, giving him drops and enjoying his company. The shocking news is that he has stopped humping! I've always thought that by middle age a humping dog would not be affected by neutering because humping has become a habit as much as an urge. But I guess I was wrong. Frankie is happy about that.
• Pat's hockey team is so good that they have been kicked out of the C league and moved up to the B league. And this happened even before playoffs! The championship game is this Saturday. I think it will be funny if they lose. Will the other team have to move up the B league instead then?
• Our roller hockey season is over. Thank god. It was fun to play again with the old team...but damn....roller really sucks after making the switch to ice. If I ever play hockey again, it will only be on ice.
• My birthday sucked. My birthday weekend (the Oyster Race, see post below) was good, but the actual day really blew.
• My work is the most stressful place to work right now. I won't go into the full specifics but I will say it's not the job or the work itself that is stressful.
• I haven't won the lottery yet. And I really want to. Why isn't a great degree of wanting ever enough?? Jeez.
• I looked at the agility trial schedule and it appears that I have something already planned for every trial weekend this fall...stuff like my sister's wedding and a trip to New Orleans (see below). Ergh. Frankie won't compete again until December or January.
  
• Christy and I have decided to compete in the Championships of the Great Urban Race that we qualified for in the Phoenix race (read about it here). The event is November 7th in New Orleans. Anyone out there know much about New Orleans? Feel free to pepper me with your knowledge.
• I returned the Blackberry Storm. I gave it three weeks and I hated it as much at the end as I did at the beginning. I'm pleased to say that the nice guy at the Verizon store took it back with no hassle. I dropped it twice in those three weeks and it looked a bit beat up.
  

That's it. It's past midnight now. I need to go to sleep. (But I don't want to...cuz once you go to sleep, the next thing you know...you're awake and you have to go to work again. And that is depressing.)

My Two Frankies

Frankie - my multiple personality puppy. Wow!

On Saturday at the agility trial in Prescott, he was amazing! Four completely awesome runs and one kinda crappy one. He started the day with a Q in gamblers. He started out a little wild, but was able to control himself and pay attention by the time he had to do the gamble (which for you non-agility folks is a set of obstacles that you have to direct your dog through at a distance. There is a line you can't cross while you command the dog). He's never all that great with distance, but he was awesome on Saturday! After that, he Q'd in both of his standard runs and thus finally achieved all the Q's he needed to advance to Intern level. Yay! It only took us 3 years!

Here is a video of one of his Standard Q's. He still is reluctant about the weave poles, but since he did everything else I asked of him and most impressively, didn't run off like a spazz, I didn't mind so much. And we were still 9 seconds under time, even with all the time he wastes there.


He competed in his first Specialist level jumpers course. The 4-5-6 jumps were the hardest and he breezed right through with no trouble, so I was mentally already picking up my ribbons. Stupid. I was lazy on the end of the course and he missed the last serpentine. If I had more focus (gee, wonder where he gets his issues from??), we would have Q'd in jumpers too. After he went off-course, I got him right back and we finished well. Bummer. The last run of the day was Snakes and Ladders, which requires 3 sets of weave poles. Based on the video above, you can probably guess that we were WAY over time. :)

Then, on Sunday, the old Frankie was back...larger than life. He had the zoomies worse than he has ever had. We pissed off our trigility partner because she didn't Q. (Lady-Pat had to miss the trial because she had surgery so a random person was added to our group. Never a good thing with a dog like Frankie!). His second trigility run was the exact same. How embarrassing. I thought he was settled down during his Standard run. He stayed at the start line. He took the first 2 jumps, he entered the correct end of the tunnel and most shockingly he went right into the weaves and was doing great. I was thrilled! Until he hit the 6th of the 12 weaves. His eyes glazed over and he was gone. He zoomed around the edge of the ring faster than a greyhound. He's insane. Ergh. He actually did great in his Jumpers run - it seems that with no tunnels or contacts to entice him, he doesn't have the strong urge to spazz. Again though, he missed a serpentine. Looks like I know what to work on.

The last run of the day was Strategic Time Gamblers - where you make up your own course for 30 seconds, then make up your own course for another 15 seconds...with the goal of trying to rack up lots of points and finish the run in 42.5 to 45 seconds. Frankie obviously loves to make up his own course and I was a good judge of time, so we did get a Q in this one. I don't technically count it as a good run, though, since my dog was not under control at any point in the 44 seconds! So, Sunday sucked.

But overall, I'm pleased with the weekend. The Frankie that showed up on Saturday was so enjoyable that I was able to overlook the goofball Frankie that came to play on Sunday. I guess we'll stick with it!

Mini Updates

• I have an agility trial in Prescott this weekend. I've practiced with Frankie twice in the past two weeks. The first time, he was 100% the best agility dog you have ever seen! Better than all the dogs on ESPN. He was a vision of athleticism and intelligence and willingness to please. This is the Frankie that no one gets to see....so depressing. The second practice, he was 100% Frankie. Jumped off some contacts, blew off the weave poles. The usual. I was pleased actually, because it gave me the opportunity to work on correcting some of these bad habits. (What am I talking about?? I don't know how to correct his bad habits...or it would have been accomplished by now!!) I wonder which dog I'll have this weekend?
• Last Saturday Pat and I took the boat out to Bartlett. It was sort of last minute and as such, I couldn't wrangle up any of my friends to go with me. I keep telling myself that the "no" responses I received are actually not a true indication of people's feelings about me. Since the boat was going to be relatively empty, Pat allowed me to bring a dog (in his truck AND on the boat!! Wow!). Since he was being so generous, I let him pick which dog. He chose Georgie. She did great on the boat! She was a little nervous when we'd go really fast or hit a big wave - that caused her to dive under a chair for protection. But overall, she has the potential to be a good boat dog. We wakeboarded a little bit, but it was so windy that the lake was really choppy. It was an accomplishment just to stay upright!
• My 20th high school reunion is coming up next month. I am not going. I am wondering how I got to be so damn old, though.
• I am participating in 3 upcoming adventure races: Extreme Heat Coon Bluff, the Gilmore Adventure Race and for my birthday, the Oyster Race, which is Denver and is being attended by those of my friends who like me enough to travel with me!
• I've been seeing LOTS of movies this year. Jamie and I regularly go to $1.50 night at the cheap-o movie theater. We've seen lots of horrible movies (Knowing- quite possibly the worst movie ever, Twilight, Bride Wars, Tom Cruise-in-an-Eyepatch) but the last movie we saw was awesome! If you have the opportunity to see Crank II, by all means, TAKE IT! It was great! Just don't bring all your brain cells with you...some of them might be put off a bit.
• Something crazy is going on in Phoenix. It's June 18th and it has yet to get really hot. It's bizarre.
• I'm spending the 4th of July weekend hiking the Grand Canyon and camping at the bottom. I'm guessing the full Arizona heat will finally hit that weekend!

Frankie Refutes Doping Allegations - Tests Clean

Frankie has refuted all allegations of doping prior to agility trials. For today's trial, he tested clean. And better yet, he ran clean! Why is this dog smiling and why are his ears so big? I have no answer to the second question, but in answer to the first...it's because Frankie is the proud recipient of a brand new Beginner Jumpers Title!! Yee Haw! He Q'd and came in first in his jumpers run! He also Q'd in his standard run. He would have Q'd in the gamblers run if I didn't get all confrazzled and lose track of time. It was a stellar day.

Like in all sports, if there is not a doping scandal, then there must be a judging scandal. It's always something. I have some doubts that Frankie's standard run was clean. It looked to me like he jumped off the A-frame without touching the contact. The judge (obviously not a French judge) may have seen a toenail touch from her angle because no fault was called. On the other hand, Vickie's dog was faulted for a missed contact and she had no doubts that a paw was firmly on the yellow. We decided that she gifted me her contact and took my fault as a pay-it-forward kind of karma. Thanks, Vickie. Good karma is coming your way!

The Rest of Saturday

You didn't think that after doing the race on Saturday that I went home and relaxed for the rest of the day, did you? Yeah, right.

After lunch with Pat, I took Frankie to agility practice. It was just practice so he was awesome!! An agility super-star!! Don't believe me? My friend Sheryl was there. She is my witness! He was also quite amazing at class last Thursday, too. There were at least 6 people there who could vouch for this! I'm telling you, he really is good at agility! REALLY! If I could only pinpoint the disconnect between practice and trials...

Weaving...get it, get it, get it...
All of a sudden Frankie loves to weave! Where he used to fly right by the weaves without even seeing them, now he rarely misses an entrance. Look at that smile on his face!
I think Frankie's paw-touching jumping style is adorable.
He always jumps this way.
Mo got to come to practice, too. Last week I took her to Jim to see what he thought of her agility possibility. We worked on jumps (4" only) and, as expected, she was very slow to do it and very slow to warm up to Jim. But by the end of the session, her tail was raised a bit and she was going willingly through the stanchions. On Saturday she was really happy to be there. She was running around the yard with her tail high and wagging. She did her jump series very nicely. I think she was starting to figure out what I was asking her to do.

We haven't tried her on the contacts yet. Jim wants to test her 3-legged balance first. He noticed that her right front foot is flattening out and is turning sideways to accommodate the weight shift. He is worried that might affect her ability to do contacts and even tunnels. We'll see. However, she was quite curious about the A-frame. This might have been because I was sitting on it. :)
After agility, I took Mo home and picked up Georgie and I took the tan dogs hiking. We left a little later in the afternoon than I wanted to and there was a storm blowing in. We barely made it back before full dark. I probably shouldn't have stopped to pose the pups for pictures, but they just looked so cute!! And my knee was starting to hurt, so the break was welcomed. This is the only shot I got where they were both looking at me. Georgie looks cute, but Frankie looks a little scary, like maybe he really IS a coyote. Or some sort of wild animal who wants to tear into you and rip you apart. RRRrrrr...
Ok, after all that, I did rest on Saturday night. My NFBF, aka the nicest guy in the world, dropped off some pizza for me (mmm, Spinato's) even though I turned him down for a hockey date. I spent the evening reading my book club book. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't finish it. 600+ page books are just too much for me, I think!

Crack Pipe Agility

This is Frankie.
This is his crack pipe.

And this is why I'm contemplating quitting agility.

You do everything you can to be a good parent. You spend quality time with your kids, you teach them important life skills, you are there for them when they need to talk. You spend your hard earned money making sure they go to the right schools and have the best gear. And how do they repay you?

By hitting the crack pipe, that's how!

I don't know who Frankie's supplier is or how he manages to light the lighter with no thumbs, but there is no denying that my dog is a frickin' crackhead.

In the past six months, Frankie has shown tremendous improvement at agility class. He's been known to be something of wild child, running around like a man on fire every chance he gets, especially at trials. I've tried everything to combat this tendency and have finally found moderate success. The new trick is to have Frankie take the first obstacle of the course and then immediately command him into a sit. Then we start up again and finish the course. It calms down the zoomies and has been working like magic (ok, not highly accomplished-Vegas show type of magic, but at least like impressive amateur magic). I've been getting good runs out of him at every class and every practice. All of this success instilled in me a heart-soaring feeling of optimism that maybe THIS weekend would be the weekend that we could get a few Qs.

Cue the trial. Bring in the crack pipe.

As soon as that dog gets to the start line, you see all the classic signs. First his eyes glaze over. Seriously, they do. Then you notice the increased energy and intense euphoria as he tears around the course taking any and every jump and tunnel. Whee!! See him fly off the A-frame! See him fly off the dog walk! He's having more fun than any dog you've ever seen. And he is completely Out. Of. Control.

After the crack high, you always get the crash. All of the "crash" signs are evident as well: anxiety, severe depression, irritability, extreme fatigue. Evident in me anyway.

After 5 out of 5 crack-runs, I packed it up and quit for the weekend, taking with me some severe depression, anxiety, and fatigue.

This weekend sucked.

Agility Trial = More Humiliation

Frankie is so frustrating. I swear he is good in practice, but then we get to a trial and he is just horrible! I've got some nice video that I will post soon of Frankie running at top speed going through every tunnel he can find, while off-screen and nowhere near my crazy dog, you can hear me screeching "Frankie, HERE!" The Frankie Say Relax t-shirt that I was wearing just didn't work the magic I was hoping for.

We ended up Q'ing in 3 out of 10 runs. Two were gamblers runs, which is Frankie's only real agility talent. The main point is for your dog to complete as many obstacles as he can in a 30 second time frame. Each obstacle is worth a set number of points - jumps are 1, tunnels are 3, etc. Most people design a course for their dog to follow that will maximize their point collection in the time allotted. Personally I just let Frankie run willy-nilly since he's going to do so anyway and it seems that I still qualify every time. Setting a course for him would be a waste of time as he obviously believes that his course is better. That tunnel - the one WAY on the other side of the course? Yeah, to Frankie that looks like a good place to start. My lack of control and horrible handling are so frustrating, but at least I get to take home a ribbon or two.

We did Q in one of the jumpers courses - which is comprised of all jumps (clever name, huh?) so there are no tunnels or contacts to distract him or any weave poles for him to completely blow off. This once, I was able to corral Frankie enough to keep him on the right course. When he does listen to me, he is one of the fastest dogs out there. They compute the dogs' yards-per-second and Frankie's YPS was 5.62. Only a few dogs were higher than that and they are 1) border collies and 2) in the advanced classes. And that is why I keep doing it - once I can consistently keep him under control, I will ALWAYS win. And I like to win. Now if someone could just teach me to keep him under control!

I had a number of people tell me how much they like watching Frankie run. What they really mean is that they are glad it's my dog who is providing the comic relief, not theirs. I'm sure it is fun for them to watch him completely ignore me and zoom all over the course every time he goes out there. Oh, the joy he exhibits! But for me, it's just embarrassing. I have been doing agility with Frankie for two years now. The first year everyone blamed his crazies on being a young dog. He is now FOUR - plenty old enough to PAY ATTENTION! And I swear, he really does do well in class. Like my wakeboarding experience last week, it is frustrating to want something so bad, to practice so much and to still really suck at it.

It rained all weekend. It was nice for the first 2 hours of the trial both days, but then Mother Nature had other ideas and dropped boatloads of rain on us. On Sunday, it was so bad that they postponed the trial for a couple hours. It cleared up momentarily and then the rain started to pour again. Lots of people gave up and went home. Those of us that stayed had to pitch in double-duty to run the show. I ended up being ring crew for just about every run other than my own. I was pretty much impervious to the rain by that time because I was wearing this lovely outfit:You can't see it, but instead of socks I am wearing poop bags to keep my feet dry, too.

Other than the weather and the humiliation on the agility course, it was a good weekend. My friend Vickie only needed one more Q to get the top agility honor - the Merit of Excellence - and she got it and it was awesome! She cried, I cried, she got to do a victory lap in the rain, everyone was happy. A few other teams have earned their MEX in DOCNA, but Vickie and Kaylie are the first team to start from the beginner level and work their way up. The others were grandfathered in at a higher level due to their titles in other venues. Ironically, the only run she needed to Q in was gamblers (perhaps Frankie could give them some pointers). See Vickie's video here: