Let's see, what have we been up to?
Agility:
I ran Brisco in a USDAA trial in the beginning of April. We haven't practiced on a USDAA full-height A-frame with slats for quite awhile and it ended up hurting us (literally). Brisco was doing well and got a gamble Q, then in standard the course went from the table to the A-frame. He accelerated off the table and hit the up ramp of the A-frame really hard! It was like he ran into a wall... even the judge had a reaction. I was worried about his wrist, but he didn't show any signs of being sore until the next morning. Sometimes he's a little stiff, but warms up ok, but Sunday morning he just kept limping, so we called it a weekend and went home. The only other agility trial we've competed in was my April 29 - May 1st NADAC trial. I pulled Brisco from touch-n-go Friday night, but ran him in everything else. He ran really well and didn't show any signs of being sore! Whoo hoo! I ran him with carpal supports. It's been a topic of discussion on the NADAC list and they encourage dogs to run with the supports if they have weak carpals. I don't think Brisco's are too bad, but with the injury, the extra support helps avoid over-extension. He's not too fond of wearing them, but as soon as he's on the course, he does great! He even ran tunnelers in 7.7 YPS on Sat. Mariah was only in a few events and ran ok.
Our interesting event for the weekend was when Animal Control stopped by on Sat. and said we have a problem because the law in Westminster is "no dog off-leash" - period. They must be physically under control and we were violating that rule when the dogs ran the course. I showed him our permit and he made some calls. They honored the permit for the weekend and were going to bring it up with city council. All the other city personell that I have worked with have said it's not an issue and we'll be fine, so we'll double check and hopefully we can continue to use the park for future trials.
Flyball:
Since all the in-region flyball tournaments have conflicted with NADAC trials up to this point, we hadn't played flyball since last Nov. A couple of us decided to take a road trip to Phoenix for a tournament being held in the Univeristy of Phoenix Stadium - home of the Arizona Cardinals. It was a large AKC cluster show and we were in a banquet type room which was a bit small and carpeted, but it worked. We had a good time racing and Trek got to do a lot of warm-ups and was looking good! Since it was a week after Brisco hurt himself at the USDAA trial, he was starting to get a little sore, so we put Trek in for his first official race. He did awesome! We ran him in 3 more races on Sunday and he was perfect in both lanes! Whoo hoo! He picked up his first 2 flyball titles and ran a 4.0 passing in one of the heats. We still have lots of box work to do with him to make sure he keeps a good turn, but we're excited for his next tournament coming up in a couple weeks.
Besides the tournament, we've been rather busy performing flyball demos with RUFF. We were the halftime entertainment for the Denver Nuggest playoff game #3. We're good luck because they haven't lost a game that we've been there with the dogs! The next week we performed during the 1st period break at the Colorado Eagles hockey playoff game. They went to 3 overtimes, but ended up with the win. Mariah was the big show-off getting to run in the high profile demos, but Trek got to make his demo debut at the Furry Scurry. The Furry Scurry is a huge benefit dog walk for Denver Dumb Friends League and there are hundreds of people and dogs raising money for rescue. Every year RUFF performs at the end of the walk and we get a lot of spectators. Trek ran in a couple races and he did great! New environments and crowds don't bother him at all. One of the DDFL photographers was taking pictures and got his first official flyball picture. Thanks photographer! :)
When we're not playing with the dogs, we've continued to stay busy working on the house. We're about 98% done with our new deck and have the hot tub installed. The kitchen is now fully finished and we love it! Bathrooms are still a work in progress, but it's nice to be finishing up some things and making plans for what's next. We hosted Easter dinner for both of our familes and had 11 adults and 2 kids over. We were able to put a few tables together so we could all sit in the same area and visit. It was a fun day!
With summer getting closer, we're already planning our weekends to the mountains for camping & hiking. We also just booked tickets for us, Trek and Brisco to Alaska for their summer solstice flyball tournaments. We went up 2 yrs ago and had a blast, so we decided to go back again this year. Mariah will be 11 in July, so we'll let her stay here and relax with friends.
Hopefully my next blog post won't be 2 months out, but we'll see...
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