Disc Dogs at Thorntonfest

We had a fun, family day playing Frisbee last weekend. We entered the Colorado Disc Dog's season opener - the Skyhoundz West Open Qualifier. The competition was in Thornton and only 8 miles from our house, so how could we not go?! This tournament was where we made our debut 1 year ago. It is a fun competition. We've only done 2 frisbee competitions prior to this, so we were still eligible to enter the novice division. Novice competitors get to play for free and they even give you a free frisbee for each dog! CDD does a great job putting on these competitions.

We just competed in the Distance/Accuracy part of the tournament. Each competitor has 1 minute to get as many catches as possible. The field is marked with different points zones of 1, 2, 3 and 5 pts. The zone that the dog has all 4 feet in on the catch is the value that they get. There is an extra 1/2 pt awarded if the dog catches the frisbee with all 4 feet in the air. Each dog can play with 2 different handlers, so both Travis and I were able to throw for both dogs.

Last year I only threw for Brisco. This year I decided to let Mariah play too! She's really good at catching the frisbee at home and I knew if she stayed on task, she'd do well in competition. Well, the first time I went to throw for her, she missed the first one, then wanted to stop and roll around in the grass! I had to run out and grab the frisbee so I could get another 2 throws in before time ran out. Travis did much better with her and she was a big crowd pleaser in her second time out. She had a close one where it bounced off her nose and she almost caught it on the second bounce, but didn't. The entire crowed reacted and were bummed she didn't get it. It was fun to have them cheer her and Travis on!

Brisco did pretty well. Travis and Brisco had a rough time, but once I got to throw with him, he was ready to go! My first throw was a bit off, but after that we connected for 3 in a row! I rushed the last throw and he missed it, but we ended up round 1 tied for 10th place. They only took the top 10 to the second round, so we were happy that we made it. In the final round the wind picked up. I switched ends for throwing and had the wind behind me. That didn't help a whole lot because the wind started dropping the frisbee! Poor Brisco didn't have a chance on some of them. We got one catch in the final round, but it was enough to move us to 6th place overall out of 35 competitors!

I have pictures from the competition posted here.

Next weekend we head to the mountains for a long weekend, then we'll do another frisbee competition in Colorado Springs.