Team Fernandezlopez

1. Speaking of judges, great job by Rachel Long. Yes, I’m biased because she is from Texas but she designed a great course and she’s a great judge. There was one other shaky judge with really borderline/poor down contact calls, but I don’t know her name.
2. Get rid of the up contact rule for straight on approaches please. No BC handlers have to train that (if you seriously have to, please drop a comment so we can talk). I do have to train it, and it slows my dog, and gives others an edge. They already have all the edges, give me a break. Gordon pointed out at that the new longer contact up simply ensures that BCs hit it more often while helping the >23″ breeds not at all. My rottweiler is almost 24″ and Gordon is right.
3. Loved the venue, the weather, the parking, the potty areas, the bathrooms, the stadium seating, and everything was very well run, finished in a timely manner, with 4 rings. As usual, it was hard to watch all your friends compete, but I think nationals is so big, it will be like this from now on. At least it’s not as bad as USDAA.
4. Heard a dog screaming on course and I immediately thought of Mayhem and came over to watch. I thought the handler was calling “Chase” but it was actually “Jase” and after hunting a bit, I tracked down the handler, Lisa Ross. She’s a tall, slim handler who spins out front crosses like a dance. They finished 2nd in the 26″ challenger round with a 31.66. Jase is a Mayhem x Credit pup, I knew it!
5. Speaking of Mayhem pups, the “random BC” who won the 24″ hybrid was Zippity, another Mayhem pup. Not so random!
6. Saw the most amazing golden run the hybrid in 30.44, named Beamer (Bronson). I wish I could have watched more dogs run but with Sarah running 2 dogs, and Sammie trying to make the challenger round, there wasn’t much sight seeing time. I didn’t get to videotape any awesome dogs, and I would have LOVED to tape some 26″ and 24″ dogs.
7. Other rotties there were Peaches, in 26″ and from Texas with handler Connie Richards. Peaches is a rescue and a great dog. Yoda (Elaine Swancer) also did well. I am disappointed the other top rotties did not show up, but who can blame them? It’s tough to motivate yourself when three clean runs gets you nothing, and you have to consider travel, expense, vacation, etc. This goes back to what Gordon was saying about BCs in 24″.
8. The best part of any show is when random people come and tell you how great your dog is. We get that a lot because Sammie’s a rottweiler, and we got some before the challenger round. But AFTER the challenger round, it was like Christmas for us. We packed up slowly, literally lingering to soak in every last moment. We were one of the last competitors to leave. As we were packing up, a competitor said that we had a great run (or something like that) and I remember saying, well, you had great runs all weekend. Which was true, I’d seen her run an awesome 26″ BC. She totally looked familiar but I didn’t know her. Back home, I was perusing the AKC site for info for my blogging, including last year’s national results, and I saw her picture! She’s Daisy Peel and runs Jester, who won it all last year and made the world team (I wasn’t at nationals last year because Sarah forgot our entries, bleah, so I had no idea what she looked like). But I actually remember her for her BC Fly, because I heard the dog was a rescue, and they did great at nationals one year, simply dominating. That prompted me to start a 2 year search for a rescue BC that never happened, but I remember that hearing about her inspired me to try to find one and get that kind of relationship with a dog.
9. Which leads me to Maggie Downey, who now runs Markie and Carly, goldens. It all started with Kelsey though. I saw their teamwork and it hooked me on agility. It’s actually the reason I got Gypsy, my golden girl, and why we train at FlashPaws. Kelsey passed away this year, and I miss her. I’d been so busy with residency and life that I didn’t even hear about it until several weeks later. Kelsey was amazing. And Maggie, who had a rottie before Kelsey, has always been a big supporter of Sammie. Thank you, Maggie and Kelsey, because without you guys, me and Sammie would never have found the sport that has brought us such joy and companionship.

The AKC split the 6 classes into 2 groups that would walk and run together. So I watched the 26″ class from the stands and got some useful information. First, many BC handlers were front crossing between jumps 3 and 4, with no apparent benefit, but risking pulling their dogs out of the weaves early. And dog after dog popped the poles, even in my class. I love to front cross and consider myself a FC handler, but even I rear crossed there. Watching people handle the tricky ending was also mildly painful (even little dogs) and had me sweating my own plan as well.

Before I knew it, it was time to walk. I got Sammie ready while the little dogs were running, and Sarah (my wonderful assistant) held Sammie’s food bowl while we got ready. She waited in the arena with Sammie while I came over to the ring to run the course in my mind a few more times. I was afraid Sammie would be spooked, so I had Sarah praise Sammie each time the crowd started to roar, and give her some shark meat (leftovers from dinner) and Sammie LOVED it. I’ve never seen her so keen for her reward.

We were the second dog to run. I was most worried about her popping the poles so I stayed with her as best I could. She stayed in, we did the RC and headed for the aframe. She hit the yellow and I gave her the RFP to the seesaw which was a beautiful turn. I then FC x2 and she was in the chute and I actually found myself uncharacteristically yelling “Come on!” while she was in there. The worst part was the up on the dogwalk, and I’m told she hit it squarely, but I never saw it because I was hauling for the down contact for my front cross to get the correct end of the tunnel. I never saw her come off the down and I heard the crowd roar and I didn’t know if it was because she took the right tunnel, the wrong tunnel, or the off course tire. I set up for the last obstacle (tire) and saw her come out of the correct end and the crowd went crazy! From the reaction, and Sarah’s tears, I figured we must have been clean. Sammie was just looking for her shark meat. I was very pumped up. I got her leash on and a whole row of people had lined up by the ring and were giving me high fives and petting Sammie and congratulating me. It felt like I high fived 10 people that I had no idea who they were. Sarah told me later they were a mix of challenge round and finals competitors. I distinctly remember a guy telling me that “that was the coolest thing” he’d seen “all weekend!” I think it was Voucher’s dad but I can’t be sure. The Texas section was going CRAZY and I could hear people yelling our names. Sarah told me that people were yelling DURING the run, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. My classmate and friend Jackie told me she was yelling for us at the beginning when the lady next to her “shushed” her. Jackie said she was offended and was like, that’s my friend! The run, before, during and after, was everything I had always wanted to experience in agility, and Sammie was clutch! Her time was 32.087 and I knew from watching the 26″ dogs that it was a good time.

There were 10 dogs in the class, and three of the next 6 dogs NQ’d, including Razzle’s 31.665 (missed dogwalk down), and our friend Maxwell the Terv (Pearson) also had some problems and NQ’d. Maxwell almost won the invitational 2 years ago vs. Diesel, the BC from the UK and had a faster time but got called on a contact. Maxwell is amazing. The other 3 BCs ran clean, but couldn’t beat Sammie’s 32.087, though Zinger came close at 32.447. Before I knew it, there were only two dogs left to go and Sammie was still holding on to first place. It was too much to hope that she could make the finals against this competition, and Piper settled it with an equally good run, but a tad faster at 31.436. Juice ran last and I actually felt better that he completely dominated, posting the fastest time of ALL HEIGHTS with a 29.863. I would have been sick to lose by .6 seconds. Final results:

29.863 Juice
31.436 Piper
32.087 Sammie
32.447 Zinger
33.648 Roxy
34.997 Skip
31.665 Razzle NQ
32.243 Jake NQ
35.696 Havoc NQ
37.315 Maxwell NQ

I walked Sammie out of the arena, and as I passed by the crowd, people actually started clapping for us as we headed to the crating area, and I happily waved at them, and random classmates and Texas people who were standing and yelling. When we got out of the arena, everyone was congratulating us and it took 20 minutes to get her to her crate. We ran into 2 rottweiler rescue people who had come to watch the competition, and were amazed to see a rottie in the challenger round. They took our picture and talked with Sarah while I loved on Sammie and gave her some water. I love that dog. She’s such a pain–nothing comes easy with her, but it makes the achievement that much more special. My rottweiler ran with the best BCs and had a strong showing against them. I’m so proud of her.

Heading into jumpers, Sammie was 0/3 and on the verge of a very bad weekend. For any shot at the finals, we needed 2 clean runs and a top 4 finish to make the challenger round. Fortunately, there are no contacts in jumpers, so my plan was to finish top 4 in jww and conservatively manage the hybrid contacts the next day. So we’re running all out and Sammie is SMOKING this course, she’s headed for a 25-26 second run easy, and we hit the weaves (about 5 obstacles to the end) at speed. Inexplicably, at pole #10, she comes to a DEAD STOP and looks up at the scoreboard which is right by the weaves, with its flashing red numbers. I was stunned and didn’t know what to do. I stared at her and didn’t say anything. She actually put her head back in the correct weave, stopped again, and did the last weave. So we went on, with a nasty wide turn where a lot of people refused/off coursed and finished with a disappointing 29.09 (21st place). Turns out it was clean since she did the weaves correctly. I didn’t care, I was very upset but rewarded her with food when we were done. 4th place had gone 25.5 and this course was big and open and our shot to make the challenge round. Other dogs: Juice (Topps) won the class with a 24.21 and classmates Blitza the GSD (Simmons-Moake) and Pete (Bludworth) NQ’d. Maxwell the Terv (Pearson) NQ’d as well.

Judges never paid much attention to up ontacts until the past 2 years or so. The AKC must have sent out a memo to the judges with a picture of Sammie on it, warning them to watch our dogwalk ups. This past fall, I started training a 2o2o on the UP in conjunction with our 2o2o on the DOWN. It wasn’t quite ready for the AKC Invitational in December, indeed, we didn’t Q in standard there, although we did win Round 1, which was jumpers. I had to rest and rehab Sammie’s shoulder December-February, and March training was a total of 15-20 reps on the dog walk, and 5-6 reps of weave poles. The whole month. Nothing else. Probably not the best prep before AKC nationals. Anyhow, the judge immediately called the up on the dog walk, not for missing it, but for PAUSING–it was judged a REFUSAL. For good measure, the judge called the down (bad call). And called the up on the aframe (judged in ISC). And called the down on the aframe (good call, but shocking as we have always ‘run through’ the aframe, she strides right through, but not this weekend). And she cut behind me to an off course just 5 obstacles in. Yuck! Other dogs: Voucher (Blake) won again, a very impressive double victory in a brutally competitive 24″ class. Pete (Bludworth) took a 5 fault and Blitza (Simmons-Moake) had some trouble too. Juice (Topps) finished 4th, so overall, the Texas dogs took a beating. In fact, it was so bad, the AKC taunted us over the loudspeaker, “Texas, you have 107 dogs, why are you in 7th place?” Yeah, we finished 9th. The top 5 states ran the finals. I think most of the Texas people went back to their hotels for a shower and dinner. Our aussie Denver did great though; Sarah and Denver finished 8th overall in 18″ and they were the #1 mini-midi dog in Texas. Woo hoo!