Lots of Updates

I was going to split these up and do several smaller updates, but I don't care anymore.  My desktop computer is not connecting to the internet, and my netbook is a total P.O.S. and makes typing difficult to say the least as the cursor likes to jump around randomly when I'm not touching the touchpad AT ALL.  So that is why updates have not been happening. Because, trust me, the dog sporting goodness has been fantastic lately.

September 22-23 Flyball Tournament in Monroe (U-FLI)

So this tournament was slated to be Demo's big debut in Flyball.  I was going to run him in singles and pairs and then have him on a warm up spot so if he warmed up well I could pull Pan and put him in a race or two.

Only problem was that he was still *totally* not getting his boxturn down, more on this in a moment.  So I pulled him from everything except the warm spot.  Trophy and Pan did their usual awesomeness.  Trophy was on two teams, full time on one and part time on the other.  By Sunday night he was pretty tired.  I watched his boxturn get pretty sucktacular by the end of the last race, but he had to fill in a lot more than we had planned.

Both dogs earned their next titles.  Trophy now has his TFE-I (4,000points) and Pan earned her TFE (2,500points).

Agility Practice September 25.

I didn't get Trophy in to the Chiropractor on Monday like I had wanted (he went the day after agility) but honestly, I couldn't tell. He was on fire tonight.  The ring had two big pinwheels, and our course had 5 different pinwheel sections in it as well as weaves and two tunnels.  Did I mention Trophy totally rocked this course?  My handling is the only thing slowing him down, but we're working on staying positive and having fun.  Since this course was so jump-centered, and since a classmate's dog is having jump-phobia issues, I let her run Trophy at the end of class. It was amazing.  I wish I had been videoing it.  His weaves were FAST - the fastest I've ever seen him weave.  It was like watching a high end sports car traverse a race track watching him go around the pinwheels.  Beautiful.  I invited her to show Trophy any time she wanted that didn't conflict with flyball. :)

Flyball Practice September 28 and 29.

Ok, back to Demo's box turn issues.  In the flyball tournament the prior week, I took Dem out to warm up twice on Sunday.  Both times with no props he was doing PERFECT turns off the box and coming back for his tug.  It was amazing.



However, in practice he would not turn on the box if there was a ball in the box.  After some major brainstorming with friends we figured that since he will take a ball off the practice board, the ball shooting at him was the problem.  So we devised a way to make the box not trigger so Demo had to manually get the ball.  Then it was a small matter of backing up and re-luring him through the turn for a few days and BINGO.  he got it.



After two days of practicing with a "dead" ball his hang time on the box was getting worse, so i switched him to a live ball and we've never looked back.

Flyball Practice October 6.

Last practice before CANAM!  And Demo rocked it!  I did a few full runs with him by himself with a live ball and he didn't hesitate.  His turn is a bit lower than I would like, but he was also on a new box, so I believe that had something to do with it as well.

Then we practiced passing with Trophy and Pan.  He didn't care at all.  He didn't even look at them.  So we brought out the dogs that would be running on his team at CanAm if I pulled Pan to run Demo. Again, no hesitation.  In fact, he started watching the dog tun off the box and get into his playbow "ready" position all on his own in anticipation of my signal!  It was awesome!  So Demo is going to run at CanAm, and my dream is going to come true!



.... Well provided he stops trying to eat the cats, because I just might have to drown him in the bathtub if he touches the cat again.