ISC Jumpers! Our favorite! I got lost!!
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AKC Nationals
I’ve had some time to think about what happened, and have written some of my thoughts and memories down.
Al and I arrived in Tampa a couple of days early and got used to the change in climate and became a little familiar with the city. We were staying about a 10 minute drive from the Convention Center and had a nice comfortable room with a refrigerator and full kitchen, so Al got to eat his regular food.
In looking around the city, I also hunted down a store that sold cooked whole turkey breast, which is his big treat after doing agility. No pressed turkey for Al.
We checked out the beach at Clearwater on Wednesday afternoon. Al had a romp on the beach. Chased some birds, and had as much fun as he could on the beach alone with me, and no Simon or Grace.
On Thursday, we got to the trial site about 2 PM, and the crating area was already almost full!! They had only been crating dogs for an hour and it was crammed. We found a spot though, and it was 2nd from the end of a row, which was good, as Al could see what was coming and going from the nearby intersection. We were right behind ring one what had the run by run commentary over the PA system, and was where the finals for the Team Tournament and AKC National Championship Finals were to be held. At 2:30PM I headed down to the area where you check in, and it was an absolute madhouse. There were hundreds of people and dogs everywhere. Everyone was sitting around waiting for the doors to open up at 3PM so they could check in. Luckily, I was able to get in line with some of the Washington people, and after an hour and a half maybe? We were able to leave the building with our check-in package, and all the T shirts and doggy schwag that you could carry.
Actually, I’m glad that I had Al with me when we did the check in as it helped him get accustomed to the scene at Nationals. There were lots of people and dogs and more people and dogs. They were everywhere, and they made a lot of noise. Al just took it all in. We walked around in the crowd. Al did his pretty boy prance for everyone, and was generally happy to be there with me, and all the strangers.
Friday Morning
ISC Jumpers! Our favorite! I got lost!!
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Our time was 32.944 Seconds.
Click Here to see the video Clip of his ISC JWW Run.
Friday Afternoon
ISC Standard. No table!! Yahoo!! I got lost!! Went back to the room and had a nap with Al. Woke up late, and had to rush to get to the AKC Banquet.
Our Time was 43.124 Seconds.
Click Here to see the video clip of his ISC Standard Run
Friday Night
Attended the AKC Banquet and left Al in the room for 3 hours alone. When I got back at 9:15 PM, Al was happy as heck to see me, and better yet, there were no potty accidents!!
I went to bed about 10:00 and had to get up early (5:30AM) to get to the trial for our walk thru which began at 7:40 AM. At 12:30 AM I was still awake!! I just couldn’t get to sleep. It bothered me that I had messed up both our runs that day, and I couldn’t let it go. My brain just wouldn’t shut off!! Thankfully, I thought about turning on the fan for the A/C to make some white noise. That worked great, and sometime later sleep finally came!!
Saturday Morning
AKC Standard Course.
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Click here to see the video Clip of our Standard Course Run.
I woke up before the alarm!! Up at 5:20AM. 4 ½ and no more than 5 hours of sleep. We arrived at the Convention Center at 7:00AM. Al was excited to there and I pottied him and crated him and then I started my walk through at 7:20AM. We had a 10 minute walk through and then I had time to think about the course. I was determined not to get lost this day, so I made sure that I was very clear on what the course looked like in my head. After the Banquet on Friday night, Barb Davis had come to me and wanted to talk about getting my head clear before a run and what she thought I should be doing, as she knew how disappointed I was in myself for my bobbles on Friday. Barb Davis is so helpful!! I just love working with her.
Al and I were in the first group of dogs to run. I got Al ready, and went to get in the line up. We were in Ring 1 which was the main ring, and there was an announcement about each dog read over the PA system as each dog was on the course. Three sides of the course had bleachers with people in them. 2 dogs to go, then the dog ahead of us went out onto the course. #12080. She took her leash off, and attached to it was her treat bag??!! I watched as she dropped in on the floor of the ring as she walked to the start line, and the treat bag hit the floor and some treats spilled out onto the floor on the course; and not 3 feet away from Al. This was Al’s dream come true, and my nightmare!! The Gate Steward and I both stood there with our mouths open. All our eyes big (including Al’s). None of us saw anything but the food on the floor, the treat bag sitting there, and all of us (including Al) wondering what to do.
I exclaimed “there’s a treat bag in the ring!!?”, and the gate steward said “I know!? What should I do?!!!” I said “GET RID OF IT!!!!!!” She was a volunteer, and wasn’t sure how to handle it, and neither was I. Anyway, time was clicking, we had to do something. There were 180 dogs to run in our group and time couldn’t be wasted. The leash runner came and picked up the leash and on our instructions picked up the loose food too. Al and I walked into the ring, I put Al down to walk to the start line and he headed right back towards the site of the food spill. I had to almost drag him back on his leash to get started.
I had planned to do a small lead out. This is a weak spot for us, and it costs us if we need one, and I don’t get it from him. I knew by Al’s behavior that as soon as the leash was off, he was going to head back to where he thought there was some food; So I had to forget the lead out, and as soon as the leash came off, I headed out on course, and Al, who was very excited, decided to come with me, and play agility. After the second jump it was a 180 into the chute, and I started a front cross, but Al didn’t come with me. He was feeling so good, that he had spotted the off course jump straight ahead after NO. 2, and even though I called his name hard 3 times, I couldn’t keep him off it. We had a wrong course and an NQ. We then went on and had a pretty good run!! Al took his time on the contacts for both the A frame and the Dog walk, which is going to be the way it is until I retrain him with running contacts. When we did the weave poles, I remember hearing the announcer who provided running commentary. She exclaimed: “Look at those weave poles!!”
After our run I was really upset about the treats in the ring, and again regretted not having insisted that the ring be cleaned and bringing the Judges attention to the fact that 12080 had brought food into the ring, before we ran. She would have been Disqualified if the Judge had been made aware of it, and I would have had time to get Al calmed down about things.
Our time was 49.26 seconds. Out of the 176 dogs in our class we were 116th.
Saturday Afternoon
AKC Jumpers with Weaves.
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Click Here to see a video Clip of Al's JWW run.
We walked our course at 1:30PM, and during our walk through the last 2 minutes of our 10 minutes were in the dark!! It turned out that a car had hit a transformer in the downtown district and knocked the power out earlier in the day to a large section of downtown Tampa. The second time the arena went dark was during our walk through. The judge didn’t want to give us extra time for our walk through because “we were obsessing”. I was in the 4th and final group of 12 inch dogs that walked the course. They had reversed the running order for the afternoon, which meant that we would be one of the last dogs to run. The power was off for a considerable period of time. Probably 45 minutes to an hour. Finally, some AKC representatives came out into our ring and asked for all the 12” competitors to come into the ring for a meeting. This was kind of hard to do as they had no public address system. A group assembled but nowhere near the number of competitors, and the AKC announced that they didn’t know when the lights would come back on, and the dim lights that we had were on emergency generator power. It was pretty dark in the building. They wanted us to run our dogs in the dark, and would begin to do so in about 10 minutes, but would only do that if all the competitors agreed to run in the dark. It was totally stupid, because it would only take one of the 180 or so competitors to say no, and then we would have to wait until the power came back on. The AKC representatives asked that anyone who objected to running in the dark could speak to them after the meeting and they would cancel their plans to continue the event in the dark, and we would have to wait. There were a lot of us that would have said no, and they knew it. It wouldn’t have been fair to those in the first group if they ran in the dark, and NQ’d and then the power came on and others got to run under the normal lighting. Unless of course the AKC turned the lights off in the whole arena for the rest of the day. That wasn’t going to happen. 10 minutes or so after the “meeting” the facility was told that the power would be on soon and then it would take 20 minutes for the lights to come on. The AKC had lucked out and dodged a bullet. It would have been pretty stressful for them had the power not come on when it did.
It was an incredibly long time to wait to run Al. When we got to the start line it was almost 5:30PM. It was almost 4 hours since we had walked the course. We were one of the first dogs to run in the morning and were almost the last to run in the afternoon. I had a lousy sleep the night before.
Through all this time delay, I had tried to keep the course in my head. I had seen countless dogs run the course and knew what I wanted to do where on the course. When we got to the line, I thought I was ready, but I had basically worn myself out waiting to run. I was kind of numb. Al was ready to run though!! He was very excited about it. I put him down, off came the leash and we were running. Over 2 jumps: a front cross; over 3 more jumps and a front cross again. Three more jumps and I was supposed to do another front cross, and when I was supposed to actually do it, I was sooo late, that I bailed on it and had to do an ugly rear cross that confused Al a bit. I think I was late because I wasn’t sure where I was on the course and what was coming up next. From this point on, I went on Auto Pilot. We were still on course and OK (as far as I knew), but missing the Front Cross that I had planned threw me off. Then it was over 2 jumps and a 180 into the weave poles which Al did great, and a front cross at the end of the weave poles, Over a jump and then out to a 180 jump, and back to another jump and another and a rear cross. At this point I did the rear cross that I was supposed to do. Great!! But then I headed for the wrong jump after that!! I took at least 2 steps toward it, and Al headed for it with me. It was then that I realized my mistake, and I turned back towards the correct jump and called Al off the jump that he was sure he had to take. Al then took the correct jump without crossing the plane of the correct jump on his way to going over it. Apparently the oh no’s!! and the groans of disappointment in the crowd convinced the judge before Al had even taken an off course or headed for the correct jump that he wasn’t going to be able to make the turn to the correct jump without making such a wide turn that he would have crossed the plane of the jump. She called a refusal, which was a mistake, and a lot of people told me that afterwards. Hearing this didn’t help. I was very disappointed in myself again. I’d messed up. Even if we had Q’d, I’d have been just as disappointed, as it was a terrible run for me.
I gave Al big treats and lots of rewards and love as soon as we left the ring, and then we headed home. In the parking garage, I was so preoccupied by my thoughts, that I put the rental car in reverse, and proceeded to back the car out of the stall and into a concrete pillar, caving in the bumper!! That was the cap to a very long day. I ended up laughing at how it had gone!
We had dinner in the room. I was exhausted and Al was too. Then was in bed by 9 and we had a great sleep. Things could only get better, which was a nice, positive way of saying that they couldn’t get much worse.
Our time was 35.22 in JWW was seconds. If we had run the way we should have, our time would have been probably in the 27 to 28 second range.
Sunday Morning
AKC Hybrid Course
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Click Here to see a video Clip of Al's Hybrid run.
This is supposed to be something between a JWW course and a Standard Course, but it looked just like an AKC Standard Course to me without a table. We were scheduled to walk the course at 8:40 and AKC kept to the schedule.
We had a pretty good run for a Standard course. I was very happy about getting my front crosses in between 1 and 2; 5 and 6; 7 and 8; after the weave poles, and then did an "Invite" to 12,and a FC between 15 and 16. There was a lot of handling on the course and we got them all. (5 FC's and an "Invite") . Our time was 44.71 seconds over 169 yards.
After our run we had two interviews with people interested in finding out about Al and I. One was for Front and Finish Magazine, and the other was for Sighthound Magazine.
The Challengers Round
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I didn't get to see a lot of the runs. I arrived to see Robin Kletke and Vixen have a blazing run, and knock a bar. Then my instructor Jef Blake ran his rescue Border Collie Gael, and had a fabulous run, but he said afterward that he didn't make sure that Gael was totally inside the chute before he turned to handle the next obstacle, and that is all Gael needs to have as an excuse not to stay in. She bailed, but they had a fabulous run. Her issues with the Chute go back to one of her first trials when a photographer/ bonehead flashed a camera at her just as she was coming out of the chute, and she's never forgotten or liked doing the chute ever since. It is amazing to watch them run! Their story is even more amazing. Jef adopted Gael from a kill shelter on the day before she was going to be destroyed!! She is so shy and timid that it's a miracle that he can even get out on the course, let alone almost make it to the finals!! Here is a link to a little tribute to this fabulous dog, and her great handler!! Have a Kleenex handy!!
http://www.jef-b.com/Dogs/video/2006_01_14_Tampa_AKC_Nationals_Tribute.wmv
Then I had a chance to watch a former instructor in the 12 inch class. Sally Hildt and Arrow were very fast, but Arrow was called for a fly off on the teeter, and they NQ'd.
The run that I thought was pretty amazing was Marcus Topps and Juice, in 24 inches. They had a fantastic run and won the 24 inch Challenger Class and a spot in the Finals.
The Finals
Six dogs from the Northwest were in the Finals.
 | Robin Kletke and Tigger (Papillon) in 8” |
| Barb Davis and Rock-It (Sheltie bred by Barb) in 12” |
| Lori Sage and Mikaela (Sheltie) in 12” |
| Barb Davis and P.J. ( Sheltie ) in 16” |
| Barb Davis and Shimmer (Sheltie) in 16” |
| Daisy Peel and Fly (Border Collie) in 20” |
The crowd was really excited. We were told that because of the Animal Planet video crew, that once the Finals started, “no one could leave the stands!!” We were all being held captive by Animal Planet, and I had a plane to catch! Oh, well, they were supposed to start at 3:30PM and the event was supposed to take an hour to complete. That would leave enough time to get to the airport with less than an hour to spare; but hey, this was Nationals, and I was watching the finals.
I had talked to Barb Davis several times during the event, and had watched her run Rock-It all year at our trials back home. I told Barb that she was going to win with Rock-It before she left, and before they had the walk through I wished Barb luck and said I knew that Rock-It was going to do it for her. I also said look for our sign!!
My friend Heidi Loganbill from Portland had made a large sign she was going to display when her friends Daisy Peel and Lori Sage ran in the Finals, and I thought that I should make one for Barb and Rock-It. The problem was finding paper at the last minute to make a sign? I started scouting around for some in the exhibitor’s area, and couldn’t find anything big enough, and had almost given up, and then Heidi showed up with a huge piece of poster board with a bunch of papers attached. It was an old running order sheet. We went to work making the sign for Rock-It; tearing off the 8 by 11 sheets of paper stuck on one side, and writing Rock-It in Graffiti stylized print. I had almost finished coloring in the letters in solid black ink when somebody appeared at the end of the sign. I was on my knees coloring, looking down and drawing on the floor. I noticed the shoes in front of me and heard the question, “What are you doing?”. I looked up, way up, and it was a police man. I said “Making a sign.” Tampa’s finest said: “Where did you get that paper?”. I said: “ I don’t know?”. He said:”Turn it over!!”. I said: “OK”, and turned it over. To my amazement, the sheet had some writing on it. It was a notice to keep out of the crating area unless you had a pass. I hadn’t really noticed that side of the sign, as we were in kind of a hurry to get the sign made before the event started. He said: “You took my sign!”. I said : “Oh, this is your sign?”. He said: “You took it, now put it back!” I said, “I didn’t know where it came from?!”.
That’s when Heidi showed up again, and pleaded, guilty!!?? The police man took the sign which was now complete, and stomped off to his post and stuck the sign from where it had come.
Undaunted, I went to work again and we managed to find some foam board at the AKC scoring table. We got permission to use it, and we quickly made another sign. Standing right beside Mr. Police Man, we used the garbage can that his sign was stuck to, as a table on which we could draw without having to kneel on the hard concrete floor. He couldn’t stand it. It drove him crazy!! Of course Heidi and I made a point of talking about how this sign was much better than the other sign that we had made! We were lucky he didn’t arrest us!!
So now we were in the stands armed with signs!! The police man glaring at us from his post about 25 feet away. Mark Cheek was busy getting the crowd going by doing a line dance of sorts on the side of the agility ring. The music was pounding, people would get up and start to dance along the side of the ring. Kids, vanquished competitors, a lady with one of the two Chinese Crested dogs. Mark Cheek was wild and has great rhythm!!
Then Heidi left the stands found her Pom Poms and proceeded to walk in front of the bleachers first getting the crowd to start chanting Mikaela. Then she disappeared for a few minutes and started waving Rock-It’s sign and got the crowd to start chanting; Rock…..It! Rock…..It!!..,. Pom Poms flying and waving, Heidi then ran off and got Fly’s sign and did it again. All this in front of our friend: Mr. Police Man. He almost swallowed his tongue!! It was too funny!!
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Finally, the event started. Heidi found her seat in the bleachers. We were ready. The cameras were ready, the competitors were ready. Let’s go!!!!
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The 8” dogs ran. I thought there were going to be 13 dogs in each class, but that wasn’t the case in either the 8’s or the 24’s. I presume that not enough dogs had qualifying scores to get them into the finals. The course looked very doable, with nothing too tricky until you started to shorten up the handler’s path and the dogs. The 8’s ran, but none seemed to really be incredibly speedy. Robin Kletke and Tigger were the last 8 inch team to run. Jef Blake and I were sitting beside each other and our comment to each other was that “Robin could walk through the course and probably win with Tigger”. When they ran, Robin was very cautious, and made sure that Tigger got all his contacts. They won by 3 seconds. Tigger was the National Champion for the third year in a row!! It was kind of amazing that they were able to repeat again as they had left their dogs with a babysitter in Seattle, and on Thursday night before the event, the baby sitter lost their young Papillon when it escaped from her because a loose German Shepard attacked the baby sitter and her 4 dogs as they had their evening walk. Phoenix is still missing. Robin’s wife had to leave Tampa first thing Friday Morning (before the competition began) to lead the search for the missing dog, and Robin was left in Tampa alone with 3 dogs to run!! Amazingly he did it, getting his 20” Border Collie, Vixen into the Challenger Round, and winning the National Championship with Tigger!!
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Next, was the class I really wanted to see! The 12” dogs. It seemed that if there was a trouble spot on the course, it was the contact at the bottom of the A Frame. If a dog was going to mess up, that was where it was going to happen. Several dogs missed the contact and were eliminated. Lori Sage and Mikaela were about the 5th team to run.
When Lori walked out onto the course, she spent a lot of time with Mikaela, getting her ready to run, and getting herself ready to go too. What was evident at this point was the Animal Planet crew allowed the competitors to spend a lot of time at the start line getting their dogs and themselves ready to go. It seemed like some of the competitors spent well over a minute and probably longer at the start line talking with their dogs, working with them on the ground, getting them psyched, and themselves ready. Only a couple of people had led-out. Almost everyone, once they were ready to go, just dropped their dog, and ran!! The Gate Steward would say “Go When Ready” and then it was up to the competitor to decide when they were ready to go, and everyone could just wait until they were. I thought that was pretty cool for it to be handled this way. For some of the competitors it was the most important run of their lives, and rushing people at the start line seemed pointless.
During the period that Lori and Mikaela were getting ready to run, her very good friend and instructor, Leslie Renaud was sitting 2 people away from me. I filmed Lori and then heard Leslie say that she “Couldn’t believe that Lori was out there!!” She couldn’t watch!! I glanced over to see Leslie with her hands over her face covering her mouth and almost her eyes too. It was too much for her. I panned back to Lori who was still at the start line, and then moved the camera back to Leslie. Who at this point was overwhelmed with excitement, and tears were streaming down her face.
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Lori and Mikaela took off. They looked great!! No bobbles, knocked bars, and had a clean run. On the final sequence on the down contact on the A Frame Lori pushed it, and Mikaela missed the contact. The judge’s arm went up, and the crowd let out a collective groan of disappointment. They had a good time, and should be very proud of their runs!! They were awesome.
Barb Davis and Rock-It were the last of the 12 inch dogs to run. Rock-It is her Baby dog. He’s only in his second year of competition. Barb got the 6th double Q required to qualify for Nationals only 1 week before the qualifying period ended. He’s a fantastic dog, and even though his qualification for Nationals was down to the last few days, Rock-It definitely belonged out there in the finals.
Barb had asked everybody in our section to not do any cheering or calling of Rock-It’s name before she left the start line. When Barb walked Rock–It out, the building was really electric. Everybody knew Barb was a real competitor. 5 time World Team Member who gets better when the level of competition is at its highest! This was her time!!
Click Here to the a Video Clip of Barb's Championship Run
Barb walked out onto the course with Rock-It and their names were announced. Barb sat him, and bent down over him. People in the next set of bleachers started to chant Rock-It….Rock-It!! Our group Shushed them, and the place went silent. Everyone was watching.
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I was video taping with one hand, and had Rock-Its sign (2 feet by 3 feet) in the other. I had one eye in the camera and one eye looking at the real world. It seemed like Barb was taking a lot of time. You could hear Barb talking to Rock-It as she bent over him. She started to straighten up. Jef asked me “if Rock-It looked ready?” I said “I think he’s ready”, then we heard him start to bark. Jef said “he’s Barking!!!! I said “He’s ready!!”. And then Barb did a small lead out, Rocket looked around at the ring and the crowd, then he focused on Barb again, and then they were off!!
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Barb is such a smooth handler, that you can’t really tell exactly how fast they are, except to know that if she’s running a dog, they are going to be fast! The opening for the course was really pretty straight forward. The first real challenge was a pin wheel sequence about half way into the course; with a jump, a tire and another jump forming the pinwheel, then followed by a teeter.
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To be fast you had to send the dog “out” to the tire and then as they were going out you had to turn and move away from the dog, in order to set up the next jump and the teeter that followed it. It was almost a “layer” the way some people handled it. Barb did this flawlessly, and Rock-It had a really tight line. He got his contact on the teeter, and then they were on the last 1/3 of the course.
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At this point I didn’t think that Barb was ahead of the dog that had the fastest time. The course was then over a couple of jumps and then the 5th last obstacle was a Collapsed Chute. At this point I got on my feet. I’m not sure, but I think that at this point Barb knew she had to really go to have a chance at winning. It was like she hit the turbo boost button. Her strides got longer, Rock-It responded and ran harder.
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They were on a mission!! They flew through the chute!!, and that’s when I lost it. I just started crying like a baby! I don’t know where it came from, but I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted too. It was like someone very close had died. All I could do was scream, watch and cry!! Barb just turned on her jets and they flew the rest of the way. They had really tight turns, and Rock-It did the most unbelievable running contact on the A Frame and a real tight 3 jump sequence to the finish line. They finished 20 hundredth’s ahead of the fastest dog.
There was total pandemonium!! Barb and Rock-It were National Champs!!
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I was crying, yelling waving my sign at Barb, jumping up and down so hard we thought the bleachers would break!! It went on forever!! It was so exciting for everyone there to have seen such a run!! Then Barb and Rock-It did their victory lap to wild cheering from the crowd!! In all the excitement Barb took the time to think of us, and she stood in the ring with Rock-It in her arms, and turned to us, spotted the sign, and waved and smiled and celebrated with her cheering section!! Thank God most men don’t wear eye make up! At least I don’t. Because if I did, I would have been a Tammy Faye Baker look alike. If you watch Animal Planet on Feb. 12th, and you see a sign with Rock-It in the crowd shots, with someone crying a river of tears; well, that’s me under the sign!!
Then it was the 16’s. Barb had just finished winning with Rock-It and had the obligatory Animal Planet interview after her run. She didn’t have much time after the interview to get her next dog to run in the 16 inch group. That was Shimmer. I think she was the 3rd 16 inch dog to run. They had a good run, but it wasn’t as fast as Rock-It’s time, but because it was the fastest time so far in the class, Barb and Shimmer had to sit in the “Hot Seat” until their time was beaten. This put Barb in an difficult position, as she had to put Shimmer away, and get ready to run P.J.. I don’t think the AKC ever planned that someone would have so many dogs in the AKC finals!! Anyway, Barb left early, and went to look after her dogs and get P.J. ready to run. They also had a good run, but not fast enough to win. The last 16 inch dog to run was Suni, handled by Elicia Calhoun. They had a fantastic run, and ended up winning the National Championship again. They also won 2 years ago. Suni is getting on, and still runs great. It was nice to see someone else win that I knew as Heather and Grace trained with Elicia when she was living here in 2003/2004.
When the excitement ended for the 16 inch National Champion, a bunch of us broke the rules and headed for the door. I had a great excuse. I had to catch a plane!! It was 5PM and I had to take my damaged rental car back, and check in for a flight that was leaving at 6:40PM. Luckily, I made it!! With 10 minutes to spare!!
What did I take away from the experience?
Lots!!
I was really disappointed in myself, as I felt that I had underperformed. Michele Fitz from Washington who was also at her first Nationals with her Cocker Spaniel Sammy, didn’t expect me to come for the run on Sunday morning!! I had to go and try on Sunday and have one good run, and am glad that I did.
In planning to go to Nationals I had told myself and lots of other people that “This was just going to be practice for next year.” I felt that I should see how Al would respond to such an intense level of competition, and get him used to being at such an overwhelming place. I was pretty sure that he wouldn’t like it and planned to spend a lot of time managing him so that he didn’t hate the experience. As it turned out, Al couldn’t have done any better than he did!! He was very happy to be there. He didn’t seem to mind all the dogs or people. He focused well on me, and he tried hard every time we went out on course. He did his best, and I couldn’t be more proud of him. I walked him around through the crowds and in front of the bleachers many times and he would prance to show off every time he hit the floor. He was “with me” the whole time. Who could ask more? I learned how brave Al can be.
I learned a lot about myself too. I was surprised at how quickly I forgot that we were there “just for practice”. Once we started the competition, I wanted to do the best we could, and that put some pressure on me. What was most surprising, and disappointing, was how easily I let the pressure get to me and “throw me off”. Each mistake seemed to lead to another, and the accumulated errors carried forward to the next run, thereby leading to more mistakes or mental lapses! It was like an avalanche. Despite my failings, I was able to stop the bleeding on two of our 3 runs. (Saturday morning’s Standard; and Sunday Morning’s Hybrid runs). In talking to other competitors who had been to Nationals before, they almost always could relate to my experience. The common comment from them seemed to be that you need to go once in order to understand what you have to do the next time.
What I learned is that I was totally unprepared for this type of competition, and that I have to change the way I prepare for each competitive run. I have to improve the way I do Agility in my head. That means I have to create a better picture of each agility course in my head as I do the walk through. I have to be able to stop anywhere on the course, and have an accurate mental picture of where I am, where I want Al to be, and where we are going. This is something that I have been working, on, but I haven’t yet been able to create a detailed enough mental image of the course. To run the way I know we can, I need to really work on this aspect of the sport.
As if that isn’t going to be hard enough, there’s more!! I also have to learn to do everything I discussed about the mental aspects of the sport and do it in 8 minutes. That means walk the course, memorize it, create an accurate mental image of the course, and finally, know with absolute certainty, what I am going to have to do, where I have to do it, and exactly when!! Every run I have from now on will be done as if I had only 8 minutes to get it right. 8 minutes and I’m done with the walk through, even if they give us a half of an hour. 8 minutes and I’m going to leave the walk through; go away, and get myself ready to run.
I’m also going to change the way I run with Al. I’m working with Jef Blake who does a fantastic job with his Border Collies and his Lab Milo. I’m going to try and forget the way I handled Al up to this point and try something new, that works, is much faster, is very accurate (resulting in a high Q rate), and is very simple and easy for the dog to understand. Up to this point, I was operating on the parallel path method of running a dog. What I’m going to be doing is exactly the opposite. In parallel path, you keep your shoulders facing the direction you want your dog to go. What I’m going to start doing is actually keep my shoulders facing the path I want my dog to run. It’s a big difference, but already Al understands what is going on and has responded well to it. This allows me to control the path he takes much more effectively, and give him cues on the next obstacle or two or 3, all at the same time. I’m pretty excited about this!!
Al doesn’t have to do too much other than to be patient with me!! Oh yeah, he has to learn running contacts too!! He’s already working on them at home and is having a lot of fun with them. Al is very, very competitive within the 12 inch group when he is on the ground running, and jumping. That means he is very good at Jumpers with Weaves. Where we fall down is on the Standard Course where he has to deal with the A Frame, the Dog Walk, the Teeter, and the Table. When these elements are part of the course, Al has times in the mid 50’s and sometimes the low 50’s, when the dogs that are winning the class are in the high 30’s or low 40’s. I’ve looked at and analyzed enough video tape to confidently say that if Al had faster, that means RUNNING CONTACTS, he would easily be running in the low 40’s most of the time. Running contacts are the only way I can get him there, and so we are working on it. I hope by the summer he is doing them confidently in competition.
What I am hoping for.
We were 141st in JWW which was not what I had thought would ever happen.
After the first day we were 114th of the 174 dogs in the 12 inch class.
After the final results were tabulated for the trial Al and I ended up placing 90th out of the 175 dogs in the 12 inch Class. We were in the middle of the pack, and in my opinion 2 of our 3 runs weren't very good. We were also 31st in the Toy Group.
Here is a link to the National Championships Final Results for all classes.
http://www.akc.org/pdfs/national_agility_championship/2006/jan/FinalCumulativeScoresAllRounds.pdf
However disappointed I am with our results I can put it in the context of what we have done in competition against the same dogs who ran at Nationals and ended up in the Finals.
Once Al learns running contacts, our standard course times will improve by at least 10 to 15 seconds. That would mean that Al’s combined times for Day One of the competition would have put him in the 66 second range, and would have had him in the top 20 of the 174 dogs in his class. Al in the “Top 20” is what I would like to have happen the next time we go to Nationals.
That isn’t an unrealistic goal. I’ll explain.
If we had running contacts, then we would have a time of around 66 seconds after the first 2 rounds of competition. Just for good measure, assume that he had kind of a stinker run in the hybrid class, and therefore you include Al’s result from Sunday morning in his total score. His total time would have been around 110 seconds. This total time would have placed him 2nd in the Hound Group (all heights).
But if Al had running contacts throughout the Nationals and no stinker runs; Al would have been 1st in the Hound Group. In this scenario, with Running contacts, I think Al’s time could easily have been in the 100 second range. (28 in JWW, 36 in Standard and 36 in Hybrid) Rock-It who won the 12” National Championship had a 3 round score of 91.5 seconds. If Al could be within 2.5 seconds of Rock-It on each of his three runs, he would have been under 100 seconds. A cumulative time of under 100 seconds would have him in the finals without having to get in through the Challengers round. I say that because a dog (sheltie) with which we are very competitive at local trials, made it into the 12” finals without having to go through the Challenger Round, with a cumulative time of 105 seconds. With running contacts, and a working brain, we could match or better that time. What gives me more hope for the future is that Al and I have run within 2.5 seconds of Rock-It in local trials a few times, but only on JWW. If I get Al to do running contacts, then we would have a good shot at being within 2.5 seconds on Rock-It on the Standard Course too. That would be awesome!!
What also gives me hope is that Al’s speed is going to increase with my different handling. The JWW course from Nationals was set up in our class last week, and Al and I ran it in 25 seconds!! That was 10 seconds faster than we did it in Tampa. In Tampa on a slower surface the winning time was 25.52 seconds. Rock-It’s time of 25.90 was 5th. 20th Place was 27.61 seconds. So the dream is a possibility, at least in my little mind!!
Why I’m so Lucky!!
Seeing the dogs that made it to the finals convinced me that with some hard work, and a different approach, we could have a chance to make it to the finals in Nationals some day.
The two people who Al and I work with were both very successful at Nationals. Jef Blake took his rescue Border Collie, Gael, to the Challenger Round and amazed everyone there with his speed and skills. They easily could have been in the finals.
Barb Davis; who also Coachs us, and now a National Agility Champion, provides a great opportunity for us to learn a lot. We get to compete against Rock-It and Barb many times in the next year. We have the perfect way to measure how close we are coming to being the kind of team that could do really well at AKC Nationals. All we have to do is look at the score sheet, and the video and I know how we measure up, and what we have to learn.
Then I can ask Barb for help on getting better!! How many people can do that!!
Whether we ever get to the finals or not, we have a great opportunity to learn and measure ourselves against the best!!
Barb is a fantastic coach and the finest person you could ever want to know!! She wants everyone to do well, and isn’t afraid to share everything that she knows!! I’m very lucky to know both Barb and Jef, and be able to get their unequaled help!!
