DACOF 2011 is complete and we rock!

DACOF 2011 was a BLAST and to top it all off our team ROCKS!  Victorious Secret came in 3rd place out of 55 teams!  One spot up from last year where we placed 4th out of less teams (can't remember how many from last year).

More importantly though it was a lot of fun and Tali ran really well.  She hadn't been feeling 100% leading up to the competition so I was worried that she'd miss a lot of weaves and/or drop bars.  Well she only messed up 1 set of weaves, had 1 dropped bar and looked very comfortable running so I consider that a huge success.  She was able to contribute to the teams score on 3 out of her 5 runs - she's a nice consistent dog (minus 1 rd anyway) for an event like this.  Check out her runs... thank you to Sarah and team for videoing!!


Tali VS DACOF 2011 from Sarah Duke on Vimeo.


Spice came along to be a cheerleader and because I wanted to see how she'd handle the environment.  She was awesome.  Super friendly with everyone, curious about the dogs running, willing to tug near the rings, etc.  Just her general awesome self!  :)  Hopefully she will be running in Novice on Team Victorious Secret for DACOF 2012!!  :)

Worrying is over and DACOF is coming!

All went well with Spice's hip xrays last Friday.  She came through the procedure just fine - the staff loved her AND her hips look great.  We'll get the official word in another week or so but the vet who did the PennHIP eval said she felt confident they were nice.  Take a look yourself.... this is the OFA view - 1 of the 3 views they do for PennHIP.  We also got her elbows done so those are going off to OFA.  I'm not sure if her hips will go to OFA too or not.  The drawbacks of having your hubby do the deed.  I had to hear about it all after the fact.

This weekend coming up is DACOF - Dog Agility Competition of Florida.  Love this event!  Tali is running in Open again - just goes to show how little we trialed in the past year!  She earned her OA title but she's still eligible to run in Open in DACOF until she earns her AX title.  No worries there!  Hopefully she does well... she's been a little off lately.  I don't think she can handle cross training.  That or something involved in either doing weaves, the dogwalk or 20" jumps bothers her in a way that doing freestyle and D&A does not.  We've done very little training this week and kept her to just toss n fetch - hopefully she can stay sound for the weekend!  In any case we'll have fun running with the team!  Power of the Pink!  And little Spice gets to come along to cheer everyone on - yay!!

Sitting here nervous...

while Jack is en route to a new vet we've never been to before with precious cargo known as Spice!  She gets her hips done today... fingers crossed all goes well with the procedure and that she's got no orthopedic issues!  We don't have a good track record in this department (2 out of 4 who have been tested have issues)!  Here's hoping and praying we can beat the Fahle dog odds!

Fun HOT weekend ahead

This weekend we'll be in Auburndale, FL for the Skyhoundz Southeast Regional.  Saturday Tali will compete in freestyle.  We have no expectation that she'll qualify this year and that's OK - she doesn't really perform well on that Skyhoundz Worlds FS field.  We had entered Groovy and Spice in team time trial but found out tonight that they don't do those at regionals anymore - bummer.  Jack went ahead and entered Spice in regular freestyle and is just going to do baby stuff with her so she'll have something to do that day.  If it's looking pretty "calm" and not crowded maybe he'll try Groovy too - we'll see.

Sunday is Distance and Accuracy - Tali and Spice both will be entered.  Maybe Groovy pending on where her brain in this weekend and how she handles the environment.  Jack has to catch a plane out of Tampa at 5pm so we have our fingers crossed that we won't miss anything at the regional having to leave around 3 - HOPEFULLY it'll be done by then!  We shall see!  What I do know is that it will be HOT this weekend - high of 90... and it's only April!

Looking forward to hanging out with everyone and seeing our California disc dog friends who are "east coasting" it this week after being at AKC nationals last weekend!

And last but not least... Groovy turned 2 last weekend!  Here are two pics of her at TWO!  Finally starting to fill out and look less leggy!

Catching up!

We've been so busy playing with our dogs lately I haven't been blogging about them!

As promoted in the Spice at the Florida Quad video Spice competed in the Florida Quad in late February. She played with Jack in the men's division.  This is normally a spot reserved for Ruckus but he just can't run that much anymore so Spice got moved up into that spot.  She did GREAT!  She and Jack made the finals, earned an awesome shirt and cool trophy and came in 2nd place overall.  It was an awesome finals round with Jack, our friend Chris and our friend Jason all going head to head to head for the 1st-3rd spots.  Very dramatic and fun to watch!  But really Spice did great the whole weekend because she came in 8th the day before in the Total Performance Toss N Fetch division out of over 60 teams!  Tali did well at the competition too!  On Saturday Tali and Jack competed in the AWI freestyle competition.  Tali made the cut to the top 15 and finished 7th out of 39 teams.

Two days later Spice came in heat - what timing!  She ended up missing the toss n fetch competition in South Florida as a result but Tali supported team Fahle by finishing 6th or 7th with Jack out of 50+ teams!  Groovy impressed us by playing some freestyle on the sidelines.  She was a little spooked by the environment but overall did very well and we were very happy!

In the mean time Spice and I have begun agility classes at BonJon/Sonlight.  She is doing very well and enjoying herself quite a bit!  The first week of class I was reminded that I hadn't taught her to down yet!  Things weren't going well with that effort once started either.  Jack questioned what type of down I was trying to teach (one from a stand vs. from a sit).  I got Jam and showed him what type of down I meant.  Spice was there when I did.  A couple of seconds later when I tried it with Spice again she did it!  She's had it ever since!  So a week later in class she was able to down on the table and even in the middle of the lowered dogwalk!  Cool dog!

This weekend coming up we have a USDDN freestyle and toss n fetch event in Land O Lakes, FL.  Very much looking forward to it.  Tali and Jack will be doing freestyle.  Spice and Jack will be doing toss n fetch as will Spice and I.  Our friends Jason and Andrea will be staying with us this weekend and that is always a lot of fun!

Some pics from the Quad and AWI!

Photo by Sarah Duke

Photo by Sarah Duke

Spice's catch to secure 2nd place!

Some Groovy Disc Dogging Video (and a little bit of Spice too doing baby dog stuff)

Spice and the Florida Quad

This was fun to make... do they have visions of a big win?  No... but that's only cause Jack isn't a quad type thrower - he excels at the 40-50yd throw instead but he still likes to go and have fun!

So yes... Spice is his 2011 Quad dog.  It'll be fun but also a little sad.  Sad because we had hoped Ruckus would have one more year in him but he just doesn't have the stamina anymore.  Sucks getting old I guess... but Spice is happy to step in (though Ruckus isn't happy she is!)!

What about me?  My quad dog is Tali girl.  We too have no hopes for a win but we'll have fun trying!