Rally Advanced.

Another title for "The Intolerables". We both passed Rally Advanced on Sunday, which was our third pass at Advanced level. We now add 'RA' to our names. The pic shows us with our Rosettes in our collars. It was tough. Keith was judging in the next ring and I went through with Kathy. I could hear Keith but I stuck with Kathy and got a good pass. For Tiffany's turn, Keith had just finished, Tiffany saw him, got excited and wanted to go to him. He had to hide while Kathy tried to get her under control. In the ring Tiffany was in a playful mood, wanted the decoy in the Offset Fig 8, thought Kathy was not serious about doing the trial, and barked at her when they were doing some of the stations. In the end Kathy managed to get Tiffany under control enough to just sneak in a pass with 4 points to spare.
Saturday was good too. Tiffany passed Masters Jumping and was doing well in Masters Agility until Keith went on the wrong side, tried to correct it and dragged Tiffany on to a wrong jump. I did 2 clear rounds in Excellent, but was just outside the time limit both times. We are both getting closes to passing so expect more titles soon.

Red Cliffs

Hannah and I are spectators at the Murray Valley dog trials. You can see Kathy judging in the background. We got here on Thursday, after a bit of excitement when the spare wheel and the bumper bar fell off the caravan, (see the KnK travel blog link on the left) but since then we have been having a good time going for walks around the three ovals here at the park.
The dog trials are next to the caravan park so we did not have to get up too early in the morning, just wandered over about lunch time and did the trials. Lots of new dogs and old friends to play with and then lots of time to have a mid afternoon siesta. Same again tomorrow, just starting at 10 am instead of 1: pm.

Retrieving

Here I am doing what a real gundog should be doing. I was at the Retrieving Ability Test for Gundogs on the weekend and had two days of running about in the bush looking for dummy game. I had a great time, I found 5 out of 6 of the dummies, I did a lot of running, sniffing and meeting the other dogs then went home and slept like a puppy. Keith was not all that happy though, in my excitement I tried to catch the dummy so I did what is technically called a "Break", which means taking off before being sent. It costs 10 points, so on two retrieves per test I lost 20 of the 25 points I can lose just on those breaks, so once again no Qualification, but I still had a great time doing it.
Hannah stayed home as puppy sitter to two Weimaraner puppies that have joined Mac, Gracie and Billy's family. They were too young to be at the trial so Hannah and Kathy looked after them. Hannah said it was nice to have them for two days, but it was nice to send then home too. They played a lot, pruned plants, dug holes and chewed anything that would fit in their mouths. By the time they went home Hannah was more tired than I was.

PS. I just found out I got Equal Second Place in Novice Snooker in the  DogsSA 2012 Games Awards. Jess the Border Collie won on 62 points, and Dippy the Tenterfield Terrier and I scored 60 points each.

Hannah - Snooker Dog

Hannah passed her third Snooker Novice trial and has earned her Snooker Dog (SD) title. We were both running at the same time so we did not get a picture of her run, but she made it with 13 points in the points accumulation period, 3 more than she needed to pass. I was in Snooker Excellent and I did it perfectly. Every jump as directed, well under the time, but Dopey Dad sent me over the wrong jump so I did not pass. It is so hard to train a human!. The pic shows us just finishing the Strategic Pairs Excellent class, we finished just 0.05 seconds over the time, so we non qualified in that. It has become the story of our lives, so close but no cigar. Hannah's SD title is our first pass in ages, so maybe things are on the improve.

Playtime for pups

Velvet, Starsky and Billy came to visit us today. Velvet is only a few weeks old and was too small to play with us, she just hung on to her mum and stared in amazement at what we were doing. Billy the Briard was a bit big to play with the pups and went for a sleep after a few runs. Starsky is still a pup, but he is old enough to play, so we played chasey, hide in the bushes, jump on the humans and try to get the most treats. When they went the three of them were asleep before they got to the end of the road.
We were in the Agility trials on Saturday. I was doing well until Keith got over confident on the weaving poles and turned away too soon, so I missed the entry. We had a mix up in the Jumping ring too so we did not get a pass, but we went very close. Hannah was doing well on her runs but she managed to make a mistake in each one, so she did not get a pass either. The good news is we both did much better than we did at the last trials, so we are getting better. Next week it is Strategic Pairs and the Games trials.

Agility Trials

We were at the Agility trials on the weekend at SAODC. We were very consistent, 8 runs and 8 fails.
The pic shows Hannah racing out of the tunnel while Kathy steers her to the next jump. Hannah got a fault free round, but was over time for this run. On my first run, Hannah was also running in the next ring. I heard Kathy a couple of times which distracted me, and Hannah heard Keith call me just as she was entering the weaving poles and that caused her to lose concentration and get a refusal. That was our best chance of a pass.
We did have some good runs, but we have not had a lot of training during the summer. Next time will be better, especially if the weather cools down a bit for us.

State Championships.

Here we are at the State Championships for Rally and Obedience. How did we go? We were not in it!
KNK were judging both days and they would not let us compete. Not fair. We could have at least had a go, but we did not get a chance. Everybody else was in the ring, Mac, Gracie, Billy, Freki, Maggie, Scout, Minnie even a Toller from Perth and his friend the Aussie Shepherd were allowed in, but not us. We had walks with Barbara and Karen, but it was not the same as competing. Next time KnK judge a State Championship we will bite them.