Power Twins - Activate!

At the 2010 National in Pennsylvania, we met Becky Dean and Drew.  Drew and Moira are half sisters - their mom is Honey.  The girls seem to share more than a mom though.  They are very similar in personality and physicality too.  At that National, Becky and I agreed that we would have to get together again to run both girls at an agility trial.  We were supposed to visit Becky & Drew in Ohio this spring but the work situation got the best of us.  Instead, they were able to make the trip here last weekend to run Pairs at the Madco trial with us.  What a great time we had!

The run resulted in a Q and a first place!  And the girls, once again, got along famously.  More trials are in our future.

Fabulous Fall Weekend

This weekend Moira and I ran in the annual Madco Agility fall trial at Misty Mountain Campground in Crozet, VA.  This was our first USDAA trial last year and we've come a long way since then.  The night before the trial I watched this video of our Jumpers run last year:


Not pretty, really not pretty.

This spring, we ran in another Madco trial and here was our Jumpers run at that trial:


Better but still not great.

Saturday morning was frosty and COLD!  Just the kind of weather that makes little red dogs act crazy.  However, Pu Head must finally be growing up because we had a great run and we Qd!  Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties with the video so I don't have footage of the run.  What I do have footage of is our Sunday afternoon Jumpers run.  A few bobbles and a knocked bar but it is such a vast improvement over last fall and even this spring that I am just thrilled.


Having video of our runs is a wonderful thing.  I only have one or two videos of Sam's agility career and, while they can be painful to watch, I love having them.  Unfortunately, there are so few that I can't really see a progression in our partnership and training.  With these videos of Moira, I can see how we are progressing and improving and what we need to work on too.

For Spring, the goal is to be able to enter Standard and a few other classes.  Next post - Power Twins, Activate!

No News is Good News

I'm finding it difficult to find things to blog about these days.  I seem to be posting more and more 'sound bites' on FB than coming up with meaningful topics to blog about.

Yes, we had an earthquake last Tuesday.  I was at James Madison's Montpelier volunteering when it hit.  That put me less than 30 miles from the epicenter.  I volunteer in the Dupont Gallery in the visitors center.  The damage in the visitors center/gift shop was minimal.  The gift shop had a lot of cleaning up to do as breakables well, they broke.  In the Dupont Gallery, lots of pictures were catty-wampus and the chandeliers swung quite a bit.  I think that is probably the strongest earthquake I've experienced and while there have been some pretty good aftershocks, I've only felt one of those.  By the way, the damage to Montpelier itself was limited to some cracked plaster and chimneys, nothing structural.

At the end of last week, everyone on the East coast braced for Hurricane Irene.  The track the storm took left us with some fairly strong winds and just a little rain - we didn't lose power.  Our friends to the east, in Richmond and on the Virginia coast, saw a lot more damage and rain.  Fortunately, as far as we know, everyone is ok but the clean up will take a while.

Thursday of this week I'll be boarding a plane for a flight south.  I have a real, face-to-face job interview with a large company on Friday.  I don't want to say who yet but, think good thoughts.  It seems like a wonderful opportunity for me in a lot of ways; career advancement, location and, oh yeah, I'd be employed again.  When I know something, you all will.

And, last but not least, agility classes are scheduled to resume on September 7!  I am so excited.  Moira does so much better when she has a chance to get out of the house and visit with her agility friends.

My next post will be something special so be sure to check back......

Better Late than Never

There's been a lot going on these days and sometimes things just get overlooked.  Such is the case with Moira's performance at the Madco Agility USDAA trial April 29-30.  We were 0-3 over two days but the girl still loves agility and we get a little better each time.  Moira goes into sensory overload very easily so high energy environments, like agility trials, can cause her to lose focus very quickly.  She's been like this since she was a puppy and while she's definitely improved with age, her arousal level can still go off the charts at the drop of a hat.  I'm fortunate that it manifests as a dog who can't settle or focus and doesn't want to meet new people, rather than one who becomes reactive to other dogs.  In fact, when Moira is like this she couldn't care less about other dogs - there are too many other things she needs to keep an eye on.  Anyway, here is some video of our jumpers runs that weekend.  Please take note of the awesome rear crosses in the second video.

I don't have another trial planned until fall but there's a possibility I might slip one in sometime this summer.  It just depends on a lot of things.