We're celebrating AKC Responsible Dog Ownership Day at SOTC this Sunday, September 27th from 11 am - 3 pm! Lot's of fun activities planned including agility, flyball, obedience, and rally demos - and maybe even an appearance by one of the spotties. :)
For more information and directions to SOTC, please visit www.sotcdogtraining.com. Hope to see all of my local friends there!
The spotties are doing great - classes started back up this week so we've been keeping extra busy. Peyton and I are entered in a local USDAA trial next weekend...it's been a while since I've done USDAA and this will be Peyton's first time. We're teaming up with our good Golden friends Lisa and Riley for the Performance Versatility Pairs Tourney - I think we'll have 10 or 11 runs over the 2 days so it should be busy and fun!
Pongo continues to do very well and aside from some being a little wobbly when he walks, he seems to be feeling pretty good and is almost back to his old spotty self. :)
And just so Indy doesn't feel left out, here's a few pictures of her enjoying some ice cream from Pongo's birthday...yuuuum!
Our SOTC agility trial is this weekend in Palmetto and the story of the day has been rain, rain, and more rain. Seriously, a LOT of rain - so much that a good portion of both rings were under water and we ended up switching to just one ring after our Excellent standard run. I had to come home to take care of Pongo, but I heard that they just now running the final class, Excellent JWW. Yikes!
We started off the day with Novice FAST. I had a nice little plan in mind, but scraped it once I saw that a good part of the course was under water. I wasn't really impressed with any of the options we had to get points, so I decided instead to just use this run as a little warm up. Peyton was a little on the high-side, but not too bad...
Next was Open JWW - this was a tricky course to begin with, but add a little water to the mix and yuck. He actually handled the opening very well, but put on the breaks when I sent him to the jump after the weaves. Not sure, but I think he might have questioned my reasoning for sending him into a lake (did I mention he's *not* a fan of water?). Then as I tried to get ahead, I sent him to an off-course jump. Bad handler! Had I been a little more patient after the tunnel, I think I could have salvaged this run for a Q, but he took another off-course. Oh well, I was pretty happy he got his feet wet, literally. :)
Our last run of the day was Excellent Standard - this ring was in much better shape, but at this point I think Peyton was a tad bit stressed. Actually, it wasn't a bad run - it just felt very disconnected. I think we ended up with just one refusal at the weaves. On a good note, he held all of his contacts! Too bad that's a sign that he's not running as happy as usual. :)
As for Pongo, he's been doing about the same. He can stand on his own as long as I get all of his feet placed where they need to be and he can walk with a little bit of assistance. He seems like he feels okay, although I think he's pretty frustrated that his legs aren't cooperating. We had a little incident today though and I hope it's not going to be a big set back. I left the trial in between our JWW and Standard runs to go home and check on him and found him sprawled out on the tile in "his" room, struggling to get up. Apparently he was feeling rather ambitious and escaped his pool area - even though I put all of my dining room chairs around it thinking it would keep him in. I just feel terrible! :(
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Overall, I'm really pretty happy with Peyton's runs, but it does bother me to see him stressing. I know a lot of it has to do with his trial inexperience, but I'm sure my stressing over Pongo isn't helping. Tomorrow I'm hoping that I won't have to be gone too long and will be definitely be putting Pongo in Peyton's crate so I don't have to worry about my little escape artist!
On a sour note, it's raining *again* and we're supposed to have more rain tomorrow, so we might have to find some flippers before our runs! :)
In addition to being a part of our awesome winning team, I'm also super excited to report that Peyton received HIT (high in trial) for the 24" novice group! He ended up finishing 2nd in round 1, 4th in round 2, 1st in round 3, 8th in round 4 and 1st in round 5. To say that I'm insanely proud of my spotty boy is an understatement!
Here's a little recap with videos:
Round 1: standard - a great start to our weekend! One off-course at the weaves, but we made up for it with a great time, finishing second.
Round 2 jumpers: one knocked bar (my fault, I'm sure), but I think we finished with the fastest time out of all the novice dogs!
Round 3 FAST: A really nice run to finish day one. I gave him a really bad approach to the teeter (and a-frame) but we worked it out and finished with 62 points for first place.
Round 4 standard: We got off to a rough start with an off-course to the tunnel - I pretty much sent him there since I got behind after he broke his stay. We also had two refusals called at the table. In my attempt to keep him from jumping off the table, I micromanaged the approach a little too much. I think it might have worked if I had kept moving. Otherwise, a pretty nice run.
Round 5 JWW: The perfect way to end our DACOF weekend! The 5 (offset) jump ending had me more than a little worried, but he just smoked this run! Despite a few wide turns and my late front cross at the tunnel, this was a 19 second run! The only other novice dog under 20 seconds had 4 dropped bars. We finished in first place and over 16 seconds under SCT.
Yay Peyton! Needless to say, I'm on cloud 9...I never dreamed that he would have handled this kind of environment as well as he did. He was fast and focused and most important I'm pretty certain that he was having a BLAST - he was even barking during his runs! His contacts were awesome and he did a pretty good job with his start line stays too - AND I think I just might be starting to get an idea of how to handle him! :)
We had the best time this weekend - thanks again to my awesome team and all of our friends for sending their support and good wishes! Now we just have 2 days to recover before we head to Perry for the 4 day AKC trial - yikes! :)
I am so excited to announce that our team, the SOTC Speedsters, WON the 2009 DACOF event - out of 37 teams! This is a HUGE accomplishment for our club, as I don't think we've ever made it in the top ten before, let alone come in first place - AND we won by 107 points, with some really tough competition.
Peyton had an AWESOME weekend, but I first have to do a little bragging on my teammates who totally rocked. We had so much fun and I'm so proud to be a part of such a great group!
Here's a picture of our winning team, minus a few that had to leave early. Just in case you're wondering, I'm the one covered in dirt with the spotty dog. :)
I'm running just a little behind, but wanted to share a few pics from last weekend's Paws In Motion Walk-a-thon. This fun event brought in more than $27,000 for the Humane Society of Manatee County - hooray!
Indy was *so* excited!
Check out the biggest spotty dog ever...
Indy was skeptical...she says spotty dogs aren't supposed to have long brown ponytails on the back of their heads. :)
There were lots of cuuuute dogs, including a few puppies - *squeal* - look at those eyes! :)
Fun! Again, Indy sends big "thank-woos" to our supporters!
It's been a busy weekend! I spent a good part of it at SOTC's agility trial - not competing (yet), but hanging out with good friends and watching some great runs. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few...
First, is Zoey - *love* this picture of her...
And Zippity...check out those eyes!
Here's Riley...
Who apparently has decided that the teeter makes a great runway! :)
On a somber note, I learned that the Dal community has lost one of their most accomplished spotties. "Smokey Seymour Spots" passed yesterday morning, just 3 months shy of his 14th birthday. I remember seeing him run several years ago at my first agility trial, and was so excited as I had been told Dals were generally *not* cut out for agility. Such was not the case for Smokey, as I think he hit at least MACH 5 (along with multiple titles in obedience and road trials) before retiring a few years ago. Quite an accomplishment for any dog, let alone for a "non-traditional" breed.
I wish that I could have known Smokey in his younger days, as I've been told he had quite a few Peyton-like qualities. I'm really thankful to his dad Charlie for sharing some wonderful stories, and giving me some much needed laughs and encouragement for running my wild spotty boy. Hug your spotties (and non-spotties) tonight...just another reminder that our time with them is much too short.
Away from home...I finally got around to taking a few pictures of our new training club today. Our agility field is awesome! Peyton did a little modeling while we were out working on recalls and stays...
Here is the new and improved Sarasota Obedience Training Club, also appropriately known as "the barn".
Our next round of agility classes (on the new field) start soon! If you are in the area and interested in joining a class, check out our website at www.sotcdogtraining.com and send our friendly agility registrar (that would be me) an e-mail. :)
SOTC's open house was a huge success! We had a great turnout and met a lot of new folks and their awesome pups. Hopefully, everyone had a great time and will join us for classes.
Here are just a few pictures from today - more coming soon!
Our training club is having an open house tomorrow to celebrate our brand new location in Manatee County. There's lots of fun stuff planned, including some agility demos that the spotties will participate in - well Indy, at least...I'm not sure about Peyton yet. :)
We stopped by the club this afternoon to drop off this awesome cake that Lyndsy of Pastries by Design made for us. It looks so yummy - can't wait to try it!
A super big thanks to Lyndsy for her generosity - if you live in the Sarasota/Bradenton area, you'll have to stop by her bakery in Lakewood Ranch - for more information, please visit www.pastriesbydesign.com.
Our agility classes started back up this week at SOTC's new location! Peyton had his first class on Monday and he was W-I-L-D. Really wild. I'm hoping it was just the combination of a new class, new location, and the cooler weather, but whatever the reason, he was a handful - even more so than usual.
In addition to his usual first run zoomies, he had some second and third run zoomies, and just when I thought he was starting to find his spotty brain, he decided mid-run to grab one of the cones and run around the field with it. *Sigh* - and I was just thinking recently that at least he's never grabbed a cone off the course. Note to self: stop thinking about things that can go wrong!
On Tuesday night, Indy had class first. She did really well and seemed very happy to be back in class - even in a new location. After her class, I ran Peyton for a bit. He did much better than the night before, but he was still running like a half-crazed spotty.
I've been noticing lately that he's running with a lot more confidence and intensity. On one hand, I think that's a really good thing. But on the other, he's really testing my handling skills. :) I'm finding that my timing needs to be almost perfect, or I end up sending him off-course. I'm hoping that once he gets a little more accustomed to working in different environments, his focus will improve. Not that I don't need to work on my handling...it's just that I would prefer to not have to be in his face so much.
I keep telling him that he's lucky he's so cute...especially when sporting antlers. :)
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