A Chilly NADAC Trial

The chilly temperatures this week reminded me that I never posted about our last NADAC trial!

 

Way back on January 18 & 19th, we went to the annual Frosty Paws trial held by RuFF. Our last trial had been clear back in November... So I was expecting to be a little rusty. And very cold!

 

In the past, the Frosty Paws trial has separated the casual agility competitor from the die-hards  :)  The first year, it was so icy that there was a back-up of cars waiting to "gun" it up the hill into the parking lot. If you didn't get a running start up the ice, you weren't making it...

 

That was also the year that we had no bathroom facilities, because the pipes had frozen! The 2nd year was even colder. I remember that year vividly because I picked up Stout on my way home  :)

 

Last year was tolerable, only because they had sweatshirts made to commemorate the occasion. So of course it wasn't near as frosty!

 

Anyway, this year the location was moved. We were assured that this horse barn never got below 55 degrees. I was cautiously optimistic and packed as if it would be completely unheated (it was about 30 degrees outside).

 

 

Doubled up on blankets & beds!

 

 

And wouldn't you know it, they were correct! It was almost pleasant in there!

 

The dogs only needed their (new, bought just for this occasion!) coats when I took them outside to pee.

 

Ok, they probably didn't really need the coats outside. But I bought the coats, so they were going to wear the coats!

 

 

I thought they looked quite dapper.

 

The trial itself went pretty well. Porter got an Elite Chances Q, so now he only needs 5 more for his NATCH  :)  He also got to run his favorite classes instead of the few that he still needed for the NATCH. 

 

 

 

Stout showed some improvement. I had him entered in 4 classes on Saturday & 3 on Sunday, many more than he has ever done before. I was going to use it as a training weekend to try to figure him out a little bit more.

 

Things I learned:

•  Playing with him on the way to the startline just gets him a little too excited. The excitement manifested itself in humping my leg. He also humped my leg on course when I asked him to retry the weaves...
• His startline was better when I asked him to go between my legs & lie down. He was happy & waggy to do that. I did try simply running with him, but I couldn't keep up...
• He only ran to a bar setter once! And came back almost immediately! He did run around quite a bit in Tunnelers though (first class of the day). But of course there was no one to run to.
• If I rear cross, it's like giving him permission to run wide & scope out his surroundings. It's like releasing the feral wolf back into the wild.
• If I run fast & purposeful, trying to get in my front & blind crosses, it keeps his focus more on me. Duh.
• If I speak to him & keep him engaged then he is less likely to run off. Again, duh.
• Getting him out plenty early & working with the clicker also seemed to help get him in the right frame of mind.

He did pull off a jumpers Q. The rest of the runs we were either eliminated or had way too many faults. I took what he gave me & made the courses short & simple if needed. I wasn't actively trying to Q  :)

So back to the drawing board. He is quite the complicated little guy...

Wordless Wednesday: Still More Photos from NADAC Champs!

 

Wordless Wednesday!

Well, That Was Embarrassing...

Oh Stout... I don't even know where to begin... 

I had my most embarrassing agility experience (to date) on Saturday at our local NADAC trial. I am still mortified. And still a little angry at Stout.

I'll just make it short & sweet: Stout knocked the wig off a bar setter in the ring.

Ugh. After that, I had no tolerance for his running around:

Throughout all the chaos, Stout did manage to qualify both days in Novice Tunnelers, thus earning his first NADAC title.

Porter almost got both Chances attempts  :(  So we still need 6 more for his NATCH. But we did knock out that last Jumpers Q!

I'm sure some day I'll find this funny. But not any time soon. Little jack ass...

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

NADAC Champs: Day 4

Finally, the last day of Champs  :)

Our last run, Round 7, was Jumpers based:

Man, that line came up fast!  :)  I wish I would have paid more attention, because I think if we had gotten it the first time, we could have placed in the ribbons. As it was, we were 13th out of 27.

And that ended our Champs experience for 2013. We finished in the middle of the pack, not high enough to make finals. We stuck around to watch friends & see if we won anything in the raffle, then we packed up & headed home.

I'm still waiting for results for the last few rounds, just to know if we qualified or not. Which is one of my very few gripes from the experience  :)  

Overall, this was probably the most well-organized Champs I've attended yet. After our first time in Tennessee in 2009, I was pretty sure that I'd never do another one. I gave it another shot and after the 2011 Champs, I had a hard time convincing myself to come to this one... But NADAC has redeemed itself somewhat this year :) 

I will come again in 2015, if Porter is still up to it. By then he'll be able to compete in the Double Digits division! Or maybe Stout will finally have his act together...

Oh, and Porter finally received his Open Versatility medal at Champs! I looked back & we had requested it in 2011... 

NADAC Champs: Day 3



 On day 3 (Saturday) we had our best run at Champs  :)  Go Porter, go!

 

Round 5:

 

I love how loud all my friends were cheering! We were very vocal for everyone!  :)

That run felt so good! And it actually was good! You know how sometimes you can have an awesome feeling run, yet you don't qualify? Isn't it a bonus when you have one that actually does qualify?  :)

We finished 9th (out of 27) - just out of the ribbons! It was a qualifying run - yay for weaving Porter! And on the first try!

I decided to celebrate a little afterwards... Nothing alcoholic, or another piercing or anything  :)  But I had been eye-ing these Fried Cherry Peppers on the food vendor's menu. Yes, I celebrated by having the most greasy, fried, delicious food I have had in over 6 months!

Keep that in mind as I continue my recap  :)

Round 6:

Once again, love the cheering! We were all a little "punch-drunk" at this point... Great times!

 

Round 6 was the only round without weaves or contact equipment. I would describe it as kind of a tunnelers/hoopers hybrid course. However, NADAC calls it EGC (Extreme Games Challenge).

 

EGC is something Sharon Nelson, the founder & owner of NADAC, came up with a few years ago. It is a fairly divisive topic within NADAC. And often ridiculed outside NADAC...

 

But anyway, this was my first official introduction to it. The general idea is to go as fast as possible  :)  And preferably stay not just on course, but on the ideal path. EGC is the only place in NADAC where refusals are counted. And so is veering from the optimal path. Each incur point penalties which then are added to your time. Maybe. I really don't know  :)

 

Porter incurred 22 points of faults, plus all the time we wasted in going into the wrong end of the tunnel, then the wrong tunnel altogether...  We finished 22nd out of 27 dogs  :)  But he was running pretty darn fast, especially for a dog that doesn't find hoops very motivating!

 

One thing I learned from this round: It is really hard to run that hard for that long! I busted my butt in that class, knowing that it was the only way that Porter would run fast enough to compete with the other dogs. And I expect Porter to do that for every class? What an eye opener! Now I understand why you routinely conserve energy on course, Porter! I apologize.

 

But remember what I ate for lunch? Which sat in my belly all afternoon? Yeah, then I ran as fast as I could in this class later that evening. Um, I was pretty sure I was going to barf. I actually had to bow out of dinner plans because I felt so bad  :(  Not much celebrating after all.

 



 

Chilling in our stall. No nail guns were being used that afternoon :)

Wordless Wednesday: Photo Proofs

NADAC Champs: Day 2

Day 2 dawned with roofers next door again  :(

 

So after walking the course for Round 3, I ran to Walgreen's to get a clock radio that I could leave playing in the stall. I hoped it would muffle the sound of the nail guns... I think it worked a little, but sometimes it would be off when I returned to the stall. Yet sometimes I would leave it off, and it would be on when I came back. I don't know... I think the people across the hall were not fond of the radio station I chose.

 

Anyway, onto Round 3:



 

 

 

Yes, it was the round that haunts us in our nightmares... The weavers round!

 

Strangely enough, this was the same course as the weavers round in 2011. See, I do remember it well  :) The only difference was no set of 12 poles (replaced with a set of 6) and the distance line was in a different part of the course.

 

Why would you have the same course again for Champs? In the same Champs location? That the same people would attend? I don't get it...

 

But Porter did phenomenally better this year! I mean, he still didn't weave all of them the first time, but at least we did get them eventually!  :)  (Seriously, look at the video from last time...)

 

We ended up 18th out of 27 dogs. And somehow scored a 5 point Q?! We would have been 8th if we had been competing in our normal weekend division.

 

Round 4:

 

 

 

I guess Porter felt as if he had already met his daily quota of weaves  :)

 

I don't know why I took him back to try the 3rd time. Normally, just redoing them once would put us over time (when he pops out at the end like that). But somehow we still earned a Q and finished in 15th.

 

I thought we handled the course pretty well. You don't see many people blind crossing at NADAC trials  :)  And I didn't see many handle that as a single-sided serpentine into the weaves. I wasn't worried about pushing out to the tunnel in the distance challenge portion, but I was concerned about him not taking the jump before the frame in the 2nd portion. I shouldn't have doubted the little guy!  :)

 

Above is a photo of Porter with the building they were roofing. Oddly enough, on Saturday night, they held a wedding reception inside. Yes, the building that says "POULTRY" on the side is a wedding venue. Weird...

Tomorrow we will take a break from the Champs recap for Wordless Wednesday  :)  We will return with Day 3 on Thursday!

NADAC Champs: Day 1

The big Abe Lincoln statue at the Fairgrounds

 

Time to start recapping our NADAC Championships experience!

 

This was my (& Porter's) 3rd time at Champs. Even though we brought home less ribbons than any time before (none!), it was by far our best showing yet :) And probably the most fun we've had at Champs ever.

 

A huge part of me wants to complain about a lot of things, but I think I'll save that for later... Let's start on a good note  :)

 

Our first run, Thursday morning:



 

 

We started out with a bang! A clear, qualifying run! We placed 13th out of 27 dogs in our division.

 

13th? Yes  :( 

 

We were entered in the 04-08 Vet/Junior Handler division. Since Porter is 8 years old (a veteran), he gets a height break & jumps 4" lower than his measured jump height. He also gets a height break because he is a corgi as well as another height break because I choose to run him in Skilled (similar to Preferred in AKC). So if you combined all these things, Porter would actually jump negative 4"  :) Since that isn't possible, he jumps 4".

 

But since there weren't enough other Veteran 4" dogs, we were combined with the 8" veteran dogs, as well as Junior Handlers whose dogs were jumping either 4 or 8". Not a big deal, until you realize that this means Porter is actually running against dogs that could be jumping 16" any other weekend. That's hard to compete against! So we were in a tough division  :)

 

When the results were emailed out that night, it said Porter would have placed 2nd in his normal division (if this had been any other weekend). Not too bad!

 

But back to the video... Porter nailed his weaves! And the distance challenge! It's kind of hard to see, but we had to stay behind the pink line when sending to the tunnel & then later to the dogwalk & following jump.

 

Round 2, later Thursday afternoon:

 

Not as good of a round  :)  We finished 22nd out of 27 dogs. And did not earn a Q.

 

Porter definitely started out much slower. Why? Because he spent the entire day barking at the people roofing the building next door. He absolutely hates nail guns. BARK BARK BARK...

 

And I kind of knew he wouldn't get the distance challenge in this course... Porter's weakness is sending out to hoops. But with the A-Frame adding some speed into them, I thought just maybe he could swing it. Nope  :)  Why didn't I work on that going into Champs??

 

And then the weave poles... Oh Porter...  :)

 

We stayed late to cheer on our friends & volunteer. We still had a great time!



 

Tomorrow we move on to Day 2!

NADAC Championships - Update

If you would like a live feed of how we are doing, the scores will be posted here.

NADAC Trial!

Before I recap our weekend trial, I'd like to apologize for the lack of blogging this week! All my free computer time has been used for our annual Dog Paddle! I think I finally have things organized & ready to go :)

 

So last weekend, Porter, Stout, & I all went down to Bowling Green, KY, to a NADAC trial. We have been on a trialing break since mid-June.

 

Why the break? Well, it gets expensive now running 2 dogs. And Porter does well with a little vacation now & again (as do I!). And I needed some time to sort through Stout's "social disease" (as Penni calls it)  :)

 

Well, I think we've had a (small) breakthrough on that front!



 

Yay Stout!

 

Yes, Stout qualified twice out of 6 runs! Which doesn't seem that impressive until you realize that those were the first 2 runs on the first day! It was some sort of corgi miracle!  :)  I thought we had turned a corner!

 

But then, the following day... He was pretty friendly again  :(

 

It was still honestly better than before. His head was in the game, but every once in awhile, he just couldn't help himself  :)  However, he would come back as soon as I called him. And it didn't happen on every run. And I was able to have him recover & finish the runs strong.

 

He even qualified in Chances - the class with the distance line! Now granted, the line is not that far in Novice... but it did have a dogwalk in it, and he hit the contact!

 

Porter did not do too badly either:



Yay Porter!

Porter only ran Jumpers & Chances each day, which are all he needs still for his NATCH. While it would have been nice to qualify in all of them, at least he did Q in Jumpers each day  :)

So now he only needs one more Jumpers Q  :)  And 6 more Chances Q's  :(  Definitely won't be getting it this year...

We really need to practice some more distance stuff before Champs...

Both of the Chances courses were extremely hard. Here is Porter running the Saturday one:

Believe it or not, Stout qualified on the Novice version of this one!

 

 

So all the work I've done with Stout in the last 2 months is beginning to pay off  :)  My class has stayed late on numerous Mondays so that I can run him with them standing around (thanks!). I've taken him to some drop-in classes. And we do some warm-up work outside the ring before our turn.

 

And maybe he's just finally starting to mature...  :)

Barrels...

At our last NADAC trial in June, we got our first exposure to the organization’s newest obstacle: the barrel.

I was fairly ambivalent about the whole barrel thing (or "TSB" as Karissa calls them). I wasn’t happy about the introduction of another random obstacle (I heard a lot of flack about the hoops), but I didn’t pay it much attention since I thought we wouldn’t see them until 2014.

I was wrong.

 

It wasn’t hard to make Porter go around it. I mean, let’s face it, it’s fairly straight forward. But I just don’t like surprises.

It wasn’t 2014, and yet here was a barrel. I knew we could start seeing them earlier, but only if it was advertised in the premium beforehand. And it wasn’t!

Or was it?

Well, I went back & looked…

Yep, right there:

 

Luckily, I already knew from one of Karissa’s posts that it was useless to argue about it. So I didn’t make that big of a fool of myself  :)

One of my students (jokingly) told me that he would like a refund because I hadn’t taught him all the obstacles he would see. Fair enough.

But now I am going to have even more trouble getting people to try NADAC. It’s fairly easy to introduce new people to the venue. But because of hoops, non-staked weave poles, lack of a teeter, low jump heights, non-slatted contacts, and now this god-forsaken barrel, I’m going to have a hell of a time getting seasoned competitors to give it a try.

I just hate to see our relatively few NADAC trials fail. And these barrels aren't going to help!

Oh well.

A Few Photos From Our Last NADAC Trial

NADAC Trial Report: Stout Edition

Oh Stout...  :)

Actually, we did have some good moments. He did qualify once:

See Porter in the back?

 

But things didn't start that well on Saturday. His first run, Tunnelers, wasn't bad. He was fast & happy, taking 1 off-course tunnel, but that wasn't unexpected. There was only one person on course that he could visit, the photographer, and so he did  :)

 

His next class, the first round of Regular, was really not good. He ran off to visit all the ring crew. One by one he went down the line. I waited, thinking maybe he would get it out of his system and then we'd see how the next run went. Once he was done, we took the last couple jumps & left the ring.

 

I can't remember the next round of Regular  :(  But I do know that he wasn't as friendly. I believe he ran to one person, but he came back while I was on my way to get him  :)  So I marked it with a "good choice" and we continued the course. Although not perfect, it was better than the previous run!

 

By the last run on Saturday, he was obviously too tired to go visit  :) He would look at the ring crew, but stuck with me. I praised him like crazy!! And we finished with a big celebration. If he hadn't missed a jump while thinking about running off, we would have qualified. I was pretty proud of the little guy.

 

Our first run Sunday morning was Jumpers - he did great! No running off, although he thought about it  :)  I praised him like crazy every time he chose me over them:

 

 

 

 

His next class, Regular round 1, he actually qualified! While he did visit a student of mine that was setting bars, he chose to come back to me before I could go get him. We were still able to finish the course cleanly & under time.

 

Regular round 2 wasn't too bad, either. He visited both ring crew, and jumped both his contacts. Ok, maybe it wasn't good. But it wasn't awful either:

 

 

 

So I didn't exactly stick with my plan that I made going into the trial... Why? Well, taking him off the course requires that I catch him first. Yeah, he's a fast, slippery little guy  :)  I didn't really think that through. Either he was already gone & on to the next person, or I couldn't grab him because he was too wiggly (they don't wear collars in NADAC).

 

He also fooled me because he was progressively getting better throughout the day. I really wanted to give him the chance to be right... But I realize now that it may have been less "getting better" and more "getting too tired to run all the way over to the people."

 





 

Porter butt!

 

 

I do want to take a moment to document some other things beside the visiting  :)

 

The good things:

• He nailed his weave poles the first time every time!
• We had nice little "baby" start line stays!
• He got the discriminations!
• He read my rear crosses (even though I think a couple times that they were the reason he turned wide right into the ring crew...)
• We did a nice blind cross.
• He played before & after his runs (a little)

 

The bad things:

• His contacts were atrocious! But I knew that going in. We'll talk more about that tomorrow...

Hmmm... so I guess the good outweighed the bad!

I also have some new ideas & some help to work through this friendliness problem! My students that were at the trial offered to stay after class Monday night & pretend to be ring crew so I could run him. I took him out to potty beforehand, came back in, & they were seated on the course with paper targets on their chests! I about died! It was hilarious, and I can't thank them enough for helping me  :)

We are going to do this for the next few weeks. I've also gotten some input from readers (thank you!) and our online class. I will start implementing these and let you all know how it goes!

There could be worse things than an overly friendly corgi  :)

NADAC Trial Report - Porter Edition

Porter had a pretty darn good weekend at the NADAC trial!

I drastically cut back the number of classes he was running (they offer 6 classes a day). The decision was partly financial (had to pay for Stout's runs too...) and partly because I wanted him to run well in the classes that count for his NATCH  :)

A NATCH is the NADAC equivalent of a MACH or PACH. Porter already has all the Regular Q's he needs, but we still need Jumpers & Chances Q's.

They almost always run Jumpers as the last class on Saturday. Porter is always exhausted by then & either drops a bar or doesn't make time. So I planned on only running him in 2 classes prior to that, instead of the usual 5.

Well, I guess just being at the trial all day is enough to tire him out now!  :)  Poor little guy is starting to show his age... But they also run Jumpers as the first class on Sunday, where he pulled out a Q!

Porter had 2 beautiful Chances runs. He nailed all the hard stuff on Saturday, but then missed the tunnel / A-Frame discrimination...  But on Sunday, we nailed it!

Chances is a numbered course with a distance line.
The majority of this course was on the other side of the line.

On Sunday, Porter got a massage from Letha & he was awful hot up in his chest & shoulder. I scratched him from Touch N Go after that, didn't figure he needed to do an unnecessary A-Frame. So he ran the first class (Jumpers) and the last class (Chances). Let's just say that he was pissed off when he came to the line in Chances  :)  Porter does not like his brother getting to run so much more than him!


Porter's NATCH Countdown:
Still need 6 Elite Chances Q's

Still need 3 Elite Jumpers Q's



I will give Stout's update on Thursday. Here's a teaser: he's still the world's friendliest corgi in agility...

A Weekend for Training

Stout will be making his NADAC agility debut this weekend. And of course, the NADAC veteran Porter will be running too  :)

 

 

The classes Porter is running have been drastically cut. In NADAC, you can run 6 classes per day, which is what Porter has always done.

 

But I've noticed that he is really pooping out now since he's gotten older. So half his classes will be run by Stout, which works well from a financial standpoint too  :)



 

 

So Porter will only be running Jumpers & Chances, which he needs for his NATCH, and then Touch N Go, because it is his favorite.

 



 

 

This is going to be somewhat of a training weekend for the Snouter  :)  He will be running more classes in a day than he ever has before, but I don't plan on finishing too many of them.

 

Why? Well, NADAC is awesome in that it allows "training" in the ring. So we are going to try to dampen his excitement in seeing the ring crew  :)

 

My plan involves running him as I do when we practice (aka trusting that he knows what he's doing!). If he runs off to see someone, I'll call him, but then I'm going to go get him. I'll probably do our little game where I tease him (push, ruffle, fluff, "the claw", etc.) then we'll run for the finish.

 

NADAC will allow me to touch him then finish, all under "training in the ring." In AKC, if I touched him, I'd have to leave the course. So I have all kinds of scenarios I'm playing with in my head...

 

If enticing a chase doesn't work, then I'll simply pick him up & carry him to the last jump, let him jump, and celebrate. Or I could run 3 jumps (nowhere near the bar setters) and finish.

 

I don't want to ruin his enthusiasm, I'd just rather him be enthused to play with me, not random ring crew  :)