Tara and I had an excellent weekend at Gemini's APDT trial. We haven't trialed in rally in 4.5 years, so I was a little worried going into the trial. I guess I had no reason to worry! Tara and I qualified in 12 out of 12 runs entered, never scoring below a 195 (out of 210) all weekend. We got even got 4 perfect scores of 210 (3 in level 1B, 1 in level 2B). We also got our RL3 title this weekend with an award of excellence (all 3 qualifying scores above 190), and earned our first level 3B leg. We earned all the points needed (and more) to get our ARCH (APDT rally champrion) and 4 of the 5 required double-qs (in level 1B & 2B). I had such a stellar weekend with my amazing collie-dog. We may have to enter the last trial of the year in New England (next weekend) to see if we can't finish that ARCH. : )

Here's the breakdown of our runs:
Saturday Trial 1:
Level 1B: 210 & 2nd
Level 2B: 209 & 1st
Level 3A: 195 & 3rd

Saturday Trial 2:
Level 1B: 210 & 1st
Level 2B: 204 & 2nd
Level 3A: 208 & 2nd

Sunday Trial 1:
Level 1B: 210 & 1st
Level 2B: 210 & 1st
Level 3A: 209 & 1st -- Level 3 Title!!!

Sunday Trial 2:
Level 1B: 209 & 2nd
Level 2B: 199 & 4th
Level 3B: 208 & 1st

Tara's first agility trials

It's been a long time since Tara and I have trialed, 2.5 years ago actually, when we got our 2nd and 3rd RAE legs. Anyway, this weekend we finally tried competing in agility. What an excellent weekend we had!!! We entered 8 runs at Gemini this weekend - 4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday and managed to qualify in 3 on Sat and 3 on Sun. She was fantastic and we received lots of compliments. She was focused, super-fast and listened so well to my cues while we were running the courses. The Q we missed today was on her standard run and was totally my fault: I accidentally touched her when I was directing her to a jump. Yesterday we missed a Q in snooker, when I wasn't clear enough in my handling her around a jump. She finished the weekend without any faults on her qualifying runs. She was also 27 secs under time on her wildcard, 20 secs under on her colors, and 24 secs under on her standard run. I guess we don't need to worry too much about time! She is such an amazing collie girl! She finished her level one Handler games and Fun games titles.

Tara is now: Tamarack's Autumn Rain RE RL2 CL1-H CL1-F CGC

Tara backpacking

This is seriously the cutest picture of Tara ever. We have been going on walks pretty frequently lately (which requires effort when you have to drive somewhere to walk - since there are no sidewalks where we live), and when we walk Tara carries our water and poop bags. She is absolutely freaking adorable.

12 poles

Just a note to say Tara can now do 12 weave poles! : ) Yay Tara!

Tara has her weaves

Just wanted to share a quick video of Tara practicing her weaves today.

Here's to trialing in agility in 2010! : )

long time, mostly agility update

Its been far too long since I've updated. Life has been crazy for a long while. A lot has happened. I'm going to try to keep it brief.

1. Tara got her first two RAE (rally advanced excellent) legs over the summer, with 4 placements. A leg equals a qualifying score in both advanced and excellent on the same day. You have to get 10 total legs to get the title RAE. The only reason we don't have it yet is because I've been too poor and too busy to get her into trials. 2009 will be another big trialing year for us though, I can feel it.

2. We moved back to MA. ME was too difficult for us to sustain financially. We are now renting a cute 2 bedroom house in MA. Tara gets to attend classes much more frequently and has more dog friends to play with in our fenced yard.

3. Tara almost has her weaves! We are pretty much ready to start competing as soon as she gets her weaves. I don't think it will be long now at all. She's so close. I'm actually hoping to enter her in agility for the first time in the Collie National Specialty in MA this coming March (i think). We'll also enter rally. Maybe we'll go for our HIC again too, just for fun. I think she would like that. I can't believe we are almost ready to compete in agility, we're going to have so much fun. I would have some video of her running courses if my camera wasn't busted -- I need to get another one so I can post her on youtube. She's awesome and so fast! She's really going to excel in agility.

4. We had a great workshop this weekend just on jumping. We learned a lot and Tara had so much fun. It was the longest I have ever worked her for in a group setting: 3 hrs. We obviously had multiple breaks, but she did very well, and now we have lots of fun jumping exercises to work on. I can't wait to trial with her.

5. Rally run-thrus start back up tonight at our local training place. We're kind of out of practice, so this will be good for her. We've got to start practicing so we can place at Nationals. : )

6. We're going to be taking an advanced clicker class with trainer Carolyn Barney at Dogs Learning Center. We get to pick our own projects to work on, and I've decided to work on freestyle with her. I really want to get working on a routine with her. She has a lot of freestyle skills already, but we haven't put any of them together. I think its really cool that you can enter freestyle competitions via video. That way we don't have to travel! Again, I need to get a new video camera.

7. Come spring we will get started in herding. There's a new positive training herding place that's 25 mins from the house we are renting. Tara really liked herding the one time she tried it, so I would like to be able to let her experience it more. I think its cool for dogs to do what they were bred for. Maybe someday we'll get to compete in herding too, but right now that's a ways off. We'll see how she does.

Anyway, I guess that's about it for now. Tara is such a great dog. So much more than I ever could have hoped for. She's pretty much perfect. : )

Update

Tara's friend Ash was here this weekend and she was happy to see him. We've not had many boarding/foster dogs for a while, so it was about time she got some good play in with one of her friends.

This weekend we also went to MA for a Kathy Sdao seminar. She had a blast greetings some dogs, running in the fenced in yard and going for walks on my breaks. She also got to practice chilling while we are at gemini, which is hard for her to do, since she's so used to be working while we are there. She was pretty good though and only let out a couple frustrated barks. : )

My summer goal is to really get cracking with her on agility. Since moving to Maine, its really not something we've spent much time on, due to lack of a close training facility, especially in the winter. This year I am determined though. I like agility and so does she, its something we should really find time to do. So today I busted out our weave pole set. She was excited to see them and immediately was where we left off, many months ago. Weaves are going to be our first focus. We also need to work on front and back crosses, which we can practice with chairs, and heeling on my right side. We spend so much time working on traditional heeling with her on my left side, because of rally, that she's not great at working on my right side. I can work on all of that at home, and we can also work on some jumping. Now that its warmer I will also be back in MA more, so getting some equipment and class time at Gemini should be easier. I'm really going to make an effort. I get so sad when I watch youtube videos of everyone else's dogs doing agility, because I know that my dogs are capable of it too. I hate missing out on that fun! I really want to get a teeter at home as well, cause that's something both dogs need to work on.

So, hopefully we will have a busy summer with the dogs and lots of time to work on dog sports. I have some pics I need to post, but I've been lazy about uploading them. Hopefully I'll get to it soon, they are already old, from before all the snow melted.

Right now its raining, and our spring stream is wide and roaring down our hill. Tara loves to run and jump in it, and bites at the water as it makes its way down the hill. Sometimes she gets so excited about the stream that she gets the zoomies. I love it when that happens.