So get outta my way, Fat TWoo!
Stop picking on TWooie, you kiss ass, podium-placing big head!!
Hey! Look at me! Look at me! Someone pay attention to me!
Poor dogs. The success of one does not bolster the camaraderie of the others. Instead, they are intensely jealous of one another. Everyone knows who’s the Food Lady’s favourite at the moment ;-)
Are you dumb? Of course it’s me!
Thanks for all the congratulatory comments! We are quite chuffed ’round these parts. Still. I mean, part of me thinks we could have done way better, but a bigger part of me knows it could have been a lot worse too … like, having to pull Tweed out of the competition altogether worse.
I’d love to do a blog post for you describing agility terminology, with photos, but I didn’t take any while I was there. Even though I was only running two dogs, I felt like I was always either walking a course, running a dog, or watching other people running their dogs and frantically revising how I was going to run my course with my dogs, with very short breaks for exercising the three stooges – who were just along for the ride- in the off leash area for very brief intervals. It’s amazing how you can fill a 12 or 14 hour day even though you are only running for a total of 6 minutes or less a day. Crazy huh?
But here’s basically how Regionals is scored; there are 3 games – Standard, Jumpers and Gamblers.
Standard is an obstacle course that is about 2o pieces of equipment long. It will include basically every obstacle in the sport (except the table), so that would be jumps, weaves, tunnels, the dogwalk, the A Frame and the Teeter, in a specified sequence. Your goal is to run the correct course as fast as possible with no errors. You start out with 100 points for Standard, and a set course time in which you must run … and different f*ck ups are penalties they remove from your 100 points. So a refusal (say running past a jump, or popping out of the weave poles) is a 5 point penalty. Taking THE TIRE INSTEAD OF THE TEETER, TWEED is an off-course penalty worth 20 whopping points (ouch) etc. If you run clean, you keep all 100 points. If you run clean and faster than the estimated course time (which is based on yardage) for every second you are under time, you get a bonus point. Example – Tweed’s Standard 2 was clean and he ran it with 20ish seconds to spare. That gave him 120ish points and a 3rd place finish (so you can imagine how fast the dogs who beat him ran it in!).
Jumpers is a sequential obstacle course that is also about 20 obstacles long and contains nothing but jumps and tunnels. It is much faster than Standard because there are no contact obstacles or weave poles, the two things that slow dogs down a bit. Jumpers is worth 75 points, and the same penalties and bonus system as Standard apply. So if a Jumpers course has a course time of 41 seconds, and you run it in 27 seconds but drop two bars (5 point penalties each), you lose 10 points and end up with 65 (TWEED) points. If you had not dropped the bars, you would have had 89 points. etc.
Gamblers is a very mean game that I love to play. Gamblers has two parts: the opening, in which every obstacle has a point value attached to it, and the closing, which is called The Gamble. In the opening, there are a whole variety of obstacles to take any way you like in a certain time period – 40 seconds. You run around and take as many obstacles as you can to get as many points as you can. There are two “mini Gambles” in the opening as well, which are worth extra points. A Gamble is a sequence of obstacles performed with the handler behind a line of tape on the ground, and the dog doing the correct sequence of obstacles on the other side of the tape – at a distance. If you have a yo-yo dog (Piper) Gambles are hard, because you can’t SHOW the dog what obstacles to take, you have to rely on vocal commands, directionals and in my case, jumping up and down and screeching at the top of your lungs in a pitch that shatters glass. You can do every obstacle and mini-gamble twice for points. When the whistle blows, you have 18 seconds to get to, and complete, the Gamble – which is harder and has more obstacles than the mini-gambles in the opening. If you get the main Gamble, you get 35 points, plus all the points you collected in the opening, plus bonus points for every second faster than the 18 seconds allotted to you that you completed it in.
Clear as mud? Over the weekend, those three games are performed twice, and the courses are different on Sunday than they were on Saturday. Other than the laws of physics, there is no limit to the number of points you can acquire over those two days based on clean runs and bonus times. And zero is as low as you can go.
The really amazing fast and accurate dogs can get in the high 500s and 600s. Tweed got just over 500. If he had not flubbed those two courses where he racked up 30 penalty points, he would have ended up with something like 570 points and been very near the top placements (well, 5th was very near the top placements, but you get my drift). One thing I did notice about his performance this year was that he is slower than in previous years – last year his clean runs got him 1st and 2nds, and this year he got 4ths and 5ths instead. I mean, he’s 10 years old and recovering from foot surgery, so it’s not a huge surprise. I am considering dropping him to the veterans class, where he gets longer course time allotments, because that’s the nice thing they do for dogs who are older.
Regionals is the event where you do all this craziness in your province or territory to qualify for Nationals, which is where dogs from every region across Canada compete in an event similar to Regionals but against one another, instead of just one another in their region. Nationals is held in a different province every year. You need 350 points to qualify for Nationals, so both Tweed and Piper can now compete at Nationals if I want to. I am thinking about going – it’s in Calgary this year, which is a drivable distance (I don’t go when it’s on the other side of the country) – with Tweed, assuming nothing else goes wrong with his feet, and assuming I can get the money together in time. Piper is not good enough yet to compete at a national level.
First though, I would need to find a dog sitter for the other canines. They said they did not appreciate being crated for 12 hours a day at Regionals, and are not looking forward to driving to another province just to repeat the experience in Alberta. That’s the problem with having a whole mess of dogs; you end up sacrificing some of them to showcase the others ;-) So to make it up to them, I took them to the beach yesterday for two whole hours of fun and frolic.
Mr. Woo enjoyed himself.
TWooie did not.
Because TWoo, as it turns out, is terrified of kite surfers.
And when we encountered one
he ran away. And by away, I mean alllll the way back the way we had come. He’s gotten very fast, what with all the hunting and the weight loss, and I had no hope in hell of catching him. I am not very good at guestimating distances, but I would guess it’s a full mile from where we were at the water’s edge encountering the kite surfer back to the railway tracks, where I finally managed to nab him … and that was only because he couldn’t find the path over the railway tracks. I am pretty sure he was trying to find his way back to my house. I think I ran more trying to catch TWooie than I did all weekend at Regionals.
And then I had to run all the way BACK to the water again, because when I started chasing TWoo, Dex, Tweed and Wootie dropped their Dumbballs and Wootie Toy™ and came with me.
Piper did not. By the time I got back to Piper again, she had collected all the tennis balls, put them all on top of the Wootie Toy™ and was anxiously standing guard over her treasures. Piper believes in No Toy Left Behind as a life philosophy.
Stop wheezing and stand up straight, Food Lady, because you’re going to need to throw this for me again in a second.
Just another whacky day with the whacky dogs of The Food Lady.
Ahem.
But totally worth it to see my 10 year old champion doing this:
I had someone videotape most of the runs from the weekend … as soon as I figure out how to get them off the borrowed video camera (thanks Carlos!) I will upload them so you can see some of our stellar – and not so stellar – performances.
dearheart says
I know a great professional pet sitter who would be privileged to take care the TFL’s remaining doggies while Tweed rocks it in Calgary…ME! ;-)
alegria says
Thank you for the agility explanation, FL!! I think I could handle running in Jumpers pretty well, seeing as my red demon is a flyball girl who also loves tunnels. Maybe I’ll give that a shot sometime. :)
Karen says
Please tell me that lovely looking weather was Monday, and not Tuesday, as it sure was nothing like that in Abbotsford today. It looks wonderful.
You’re probably right about the mile of sand, as my son was there on Sunday, he said it was sand almost all the way out to that lighthouse thing, and he was guessing it was a mile. That was one heck of a run you did to catch Twoo!!
Congrats again to Tweed and Piper, and to the other three for mostly putting up with what they considered a boring weekend.
And oh yeah, I think we all rehash our runs and think, ‘if only’. In my case it was an on again off again teeter/dogwalk fear, that decided to rear it’s ugly head in the second standard run, after a brilliant run on Saturday. Oh well….
at least it wasn’t both runs.
Karen says
Just reread the post and I see you said ‘yesterday’ (Monday):)
Adrienne says
Oh my gosh! This is the funniest post yet! Your dogs are either the quirkiest dogs in North America, or I have not learned to appreciate all the quirks in mine. Or I’m so oddball myself that they seem normal, whatever. ;-D Piper really cracks me up. Looove the Woo shots!
What organization do you play in? I run ASCA down here and the rules sound similar — Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers. But I’ve never heard of a mini gamble. Nor the points system, unless that’s special for Regionals.
I don’t think I’d have a hope in hell of running Regionals with Emma. But hey, she started out about as bad as TWoo and now we are running Elite Jumpers, Open Standard and Open/Novice Gamblers. We dropped back to Novice. 15 ft is her working distance right now. Weave poles at 2o ft are out of our league at the moment!
Jen says
Thanks for the good explanation! Food Lady, I want to donate to you going to Nationals. Is there some place special I can donate to?
Deb says
Looks like a fun day at the beach!! Too bad about Twooie’s fears. I have one of those too (Charlie) but he usually gets scared while he’s running away from something scary and runs back to me! Thank goodness. I would never be able to catch him like you did Twooie. How funny that Piper stayed behind to guard the booty!! What a good girl! So nice to see Tweed having fun and feeling good again.
Kristi aka insane dog owner says
So…did you see our pal Terry (with Reveille the BC and Ripper the Toller?) at Regionals?
Piper – “No Toy Left Behind” – ha ha ha ha ha
The Food Lady says
“So…did you see our pal Terry (with Reveille the BC and Ripper the Toller?) at Regionals?”
I did! The bugger beat us (again) in the 16″ Specials category with Reveille. I did tell him that American ice tea sucked, but that was the most creative I got. He did really well with Ripper too, btw!
Kristi aka insane dog owner says
LOL!!! He *is* a bugger – but I love him anyway! He was unhappy he and Rev didn’t win (again.)
I told him to suck it up.
And that he should have sold me Rev YEARS ago like I wanted.
He has done an amazing job with Ripper :-)
Carol says
Um, Tweedster, you know you’re my fave, but I think calling your brother FatTwoo is like the pot calling the kettle black. He is getting thinner and, well, you seem to be somewhat “fluffier” than you used to be. Here’s to your renewed commitment to exercise daily! Just remember fat can happen to anydog, and cut Twoo some slack.
The Food Lady says
Tweed’s not fat at all. He only gained 1.5lbs during his incarceration, and he’s lost it all, and another lb as well. He is quite lean at the moment, but as with all my dogs with coat (ie not Piper and Dexter) he has not yet shed his winter garment. I blame the shitty cold weather we have been having.
Carol says
I apologize, Tweed. Indeed it is Aussie winter fluff. Since we are suffering the awful cold weather too, I should have known. I still have my fleece jackets and rain wear in rotation, so I don’t blame you for holding onto your handsome coat!
The Food Lady says
“What organization do you play in? I run ASCA down here and the rules sound similar — Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers. But I’ve never heard of a mini gamble. Nor the points system, unless that’s special for Regionals. ”
We play in the AAC, and the point system is specific to Regionals. Usually it’s run clean and under time to qualify, no points involved, except in Gamblers. But in a regular trial they double your opening points if you complete the gamble, and you need a certain number of total points to get your Q along with the gamble.
“I still have my fleece jackets and rain wear in rotation”
Me too … we went for a walk this morning and I was wearing a ski jacket. A SKI JACKET! In June! This sucks.
Ruth says
I’m glad he’s better now! Congrats!
Joe says
If you go to Nationals, and we’re not away, we’ll take Wootie. Can’t take more than one though.
amyinbc says
You know when I saw what happened at Regionals I was not only impressed by how the dogs knew where to go and do but by the fact the handlers did too! Those freaking courses were confusing!
Adrienne says
Ah ha.
A little different then. Jumpers is clean and under time to Q. Regular (Standard) you can get 5 faults and get a half Q (5 points). This equates to a few seconds over time /or/ one dropped bar. Clean and in tiem is a 10 pt Q. Gamblers is the requisite points in the opening and the full gamble, four obstacles.
How many are in a mini-gamble?
annemiek says
Dear Foodlady,
Thanks for al your funny comments and your fabulous pictures!
My girlfriend introduced me to your website because there are 2 similar hairy little rascals in our home. One of them a girly lookalike Tweed (but a fullbreed border collie, i’m sorry, called Ollie) and the other one is a mix of characters between Piper and Twooie (and yes we still love her) called Sjuul.
As a sidekick-owner or fostermum of two dropdead-gorgeous border collies in the Netherlands and an art teacher to 14-16 year olds, I recommended your website to my students. My students (mostly kids with learning disssabillities like ADHD or from wrecked homes or products from wicked parenting) are not easily motivated learning to read English, or learning about anything that reminds them of school. But the combination of brilliant pcitures with funny dogs that look like the sweet teachers dogs (most of the kids like me just because of my dogs :-) and the way I talk about them and showing great pictures of them looking funny and energetic).
First I recommended your website to my collegue, the English teacher and in both our lessons we now use your website to break tension or introducing a little break between serious education. Well, to be honoust, I use it as serious education :-)
Kids and I love your pictures but your funny comments complete the cabaret :-). Sometimes the students need an extra translation but I can’t translate the funniness everytime.
Keep up the good work (and no, the dutch government isn’t going to pay you my salary, I make sure the kids do some art in between reading your posts)
We’re looking forward to your next attempt to teach us some more.
My girlfriend enjoys your Piper-shirt by the way.
Greetings from Holland (the next world champions soccer)
Annemiek