Cheyenne finished her 4th Agility title today!

Cheyenne finished her OJP title today!

Cheyenne earned her very first Excellent leg!

Cheyenne earned her very first Excellent Standard leg today!

She's well on her way to being the very first Akita to earn a PACH in AKC!

Cheyenne finished her 3rd Agility title!

Cheyenne finished her 3rd AKC agility title this past weekend earning her OAP!

here's a couple of her qualifying runs from this weekend:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXm6hEMvzeM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB1Bd9RkiqI

Cheyenne finished her 2nd agility title!

Cheyenne and her ribbons from this weekends agility trial, she now has two titles in agility NJP and NAP and I've moved her up to Open. She only trained for 2 1/2 months and this was only her 3rd trial! Mom is proud!

Here's her Standard run from Saturday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7w350gcPmU&feature=youtu.be

Here's her Jumpers run from Saturday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMC3OoL9mwI

Cheyenne finished her very first agility title!

Well Cheyenne did it! We had 4 runs for the weekend and she qualified in 3 with three 1st places, a double Q for Saturday, and today she finished her very first title in Agility her NAP! 

Cheyenne's very first AKC agility trial!

This past weekend I took Cheyenne to her very first AKC agility trial in Castle Rock Colorado. As you can tell from the photo she did FANTASTIC!

On our first day Cheyenne got 1st place in Standard and 1st place in Jumpers being the only dog to qualify in her class. So yes she got a double Q on her very first attempt at running in agility, and she obtained her very first legs towards her NJP and NAP titles in AKC. Mom is so proud!

It's been almost seven years since mom's be in the Novice ring, and boy do I see why I hated it even back then! Our first run wasn't until 12:00 pm and the trial started at 8:00 am. Our second run wasn't until 4:30 pm, and all of the rings were completed and we were the very last few dogs to run. Certainly not a fun day at an agility trial.

The second day of the trial was worse, and I decided it wasn't worth terrorizing poor Cheyenne with how horrible the rings were being run. In the Standard course there was an AKC agility judge working the scribe table and he kept stopping each dogs run and arguing with the ring judge over her scoring. What should have taken about 20 minutes to run the Novice class, ended up taking well over an hour because of arguing judges! Not any fun for those of us stuck in Novice! 

This was a three ring agility trial stuffed into a building that can barely hold two rings comfortably without any crating inside. It was amazing despite it all Cheyenne did a great job anyway!

99th title!

Dolcenea finished her 99th title at the DAPPR NADAC agility trial today in Black Forest Colorado! She needed one more leg in Touch'n Go and we've been chasing this leg for the last two NADAC trials but it just kept eluding us for one reason or another.

Well today was the day! She finished the trial with a 1st placement in Standard being the only dog to qualify in the class. A 2nd placement in her second Standard run, a 2nd placement in Jumpers and a 5th placement in Touch'n Go finishing that final leg needed! Yippee!

This agility trial was a tough one since I wasn't even sure I'd be able to make it. 

Just four days before the agility trial:

I noticed on facebook an Akita rescue group was trying to get a bonded pair of Akita's moved from Wyoming to Washington state but they weren't having any luck. The group was finally going to have to resort to paying $600 to make this transition happen.So on Tuesday I inquired about the transport problems, and the next thing I knew I was volunteering to drive these two stranded Akita's from Cheyenne Wyoming to Salt Lake City, Utah before the agility trial. I just never learn. 

I informed all interested parties that I had an agility trial on Saturday that I just couldn't miss since I really wanted to get that 99th title under our belts. So I mentioned to the rescue group the transport would need to happen before or after the agility trial, but it couldn't happen on the weekend of. Unfortunately the decision was made to actually do the transport before the agility trial to meet everyone's schedule!

So on Thursday night about 9:30 pm right after my drop-in agility class with Cheyenne, I drove to Cheyenne Wyoming and met the Torrington Shelter staff with the bonded pair of Akita's, and we were off headed west to Salt Lake City. Everything was going as planned until I was coming to mile marker 209 at Johnson Road just outside of Rawlins and our world came to a sudden stop... literally! Now mind you it's just a little past midnight and for the last ten miles I've been confined to one lane since there is nothing but road construction along I80 in Wyoming. I'm coming over this rise and realize that the semi truck in the distance doesn't look like it's moving at all, as a matter of fact I believe it is PARKED right in the middle of the only lane I have to drive in. So I slow down and this is when I realized yep, not only is the semi truck right in front of me dead stopped, but several other semi's right in front of him are parked, lights out, and the drivers are all standing on the side of the median having a confab. What? I can't believe what I'm seeing!

So I start slowing down way back because I've got yet another semi climbing up my behind just like he's got yet another twenty or more right behind him barreling fast. So we all start slowing and finally come to a stop, and I watch in amazement as the semi(s) behind me all pull up, stop, set their parking brakes, turn off their lights, and all of the drivers climb out of their trucks and walk up and join the party in progress in the middle of the median up ahead. It's never a good sign to see a line of semi's behind you pull up, turn off their lights, park their trucks and the drivers get out and walk away. You know you're in it for the long haul! 

this why my view for the 3 hours, we never moved!

I couldn't believe it, the poor bonded pair of Akita's were terrified because we kept hearing semi truck after semi truck setting their park breaks, which is not a quiet thing when they are sitting less than three feet from your vehicle. Then we heard a fuel tank explode and I'm not sure who ended up in whose lap first, but all of us jumped right out of our skin on that one.

Needless to say THREE HOURS LATER we FINALLY started moving again! 

Now it's a little after 3:00 am on Friday morning, one day before the agility trial.

The plan was to have the bonded pair to Brent in Salt Lake by 6:30 am, well unfortunately I was a little late, not knowing I80 would turn into a parking lot for 3 hours really put me behind schedule. But I did manage to deliver the two to Brent by 6:45 am. Then I got to turn right around and drive all the way back to Denver to get home in time to re-pack all of my agility equipment I carry to outdoor trials which is ALLOT of stuff. Easy ups, wire crates, water, bags, you name I've got it. 

When I finally got passed mile marker 209 on my return trip to Denver, I did see a burned out semi truck but I can't imagine it took 3 hours to put that fire out? 

this is what I saw on my back to Denver, the cab of the truck is gone!

So I got back to Denver about 3:00 pm or so, very long drive to have to make before I had to drive the 2 hours to Colorado Springs for the NADAC agility trial. I did manage a nap after packing the car for the trip to the agility trial.

The NADAC agility trial day is finally here.
So the alarm clock goes of at 5:00 am and I'm so groggy I have no idea what day it is leave alone what planet I'm on. Thank goodness the car is ready to go, all I gotta do is find Dolcenea and we're off. We get to the trial by 7:00 am, spend the next hour setting up our crating spot.

So the trial begins at 8:00 am and this is when I finally heard in the general briefing that the club decided to move the only run we came for Touch'n Go to the very last class of the day! Good grief! If I would have known this very important piece of information I could have slept in and arrived at the trial site about 3:00 pm, instead of having to get up at 5:00 am after the really rough prior 24 hours! If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all.

So we settle in and Dolcenea run's great even though it's in the high 80's and really high humidity too! And finally about 4:30 pm we run in the Touch'n Go run we came for and low and behold Dolcenea does a FANTASTIC job and QUALIFIES finishing her 99th title! We finally got home about 7:00 pm, and boy am I glad this is over!

Note to self... stop volunteering! 

98th title!

Dolcenea finished her 98th title! She needed one more leg in AKC Masters Standard to get her MXP3 and she completed that leg with a 2nd place today at the PPAC AKC agility trial in Colorado Springs!

the most titled Akita ever!

97th title!

Dolcenea and I ended up going to the NADAC agility trial in Golden over the weekend. Boy was it hot, I had to scratch her from the two standard runs it just wasn't safe to run. The sun was blazing down and Dolcenea was telling mom it wasn't worth it. So we sat these runs out, and of course the Jumpers and Touch'n Go runs we came for got moved to the last two runs of the day.

Needless to say Dolcenea did get the jumpers run finishing her 96th title! But she didn't get the Touch'n Go run due to severe thunder storms and lightening... can't win them all.

So we got home and I was checking Dolcenea's points with NADAC online and realized that a while back Dolcenea finished NADAC's Lifetime Point Award totaling 1,000 points! This was Dolcenea's 97th title!

can you tell she's getting tired of picture taking! 

Took Cheyenne to the first ever USDAA agility trial being held at Denver Dog Sports. We only went for socialization, no running today it was way to hot!

Cheyenne update

I've been taking Cheyenne to drop in agility classes for the last month at Cinnabar Dog Agility in Fort Lupton, and Progressive School for Dogs in Greeley.

Here's Progressive School for Dogs photos:

Here's Cinnabar Dog Agility photos:

Hopefully this September we will enter our very first trial locally! 

95 title!

Dolcenea and I went to the ASCA agility trial in Kiowa over the weekend. It was a very long hot day, but Dolcenea did manage to finish her 95th title!

95th title!

Up and coming, yes all three!

I've been so busy making Dolcenea the #1 Akita in the world, I forgot to mention three up and coming agility stars; her nephew and nieces Dakota, Cheyenne and Carmen.

This was their very first agility lesson:

  

This is where they are today:

Carmen:

and Cheyenne, with Dolcenea coaching all the way:

and finally Dakota: 

here is a true Akita brace! Dakota & Dolcenea, then Dolcenea & Dakota!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_VSQVNPGW0

Agility weekends back to back.

The first NADAC agility trial was the weekend of February 23, 2013 at Latigo; boy was it cold. Maybe twenty degrees in the building and I was freezing! It's a hundred mile trip one way for us and we got up at o'dark thirty and got there just in time to setup and run our first run of the day Elite Jumpers.

Dolcenea did great, she got a Q and 2nd place. Our Chances run wasn't spectacular, but she did get the tunnel that was over 40' away with a send to it from the far jump. We may not have Q'd but her performance was stellar, and boy was mom proud.

Our next two runs were in Elite Regular, no Q's. Dolcenea made up her own course on the first run, and mom pulled her off. The second run was much better but nowhere near as fun so we were over time.

And the runs we came all this way for were two Touch'n go! Dolcenea was perfect, she got a Q out of each run with a 2nd and a 3rd place. Boy did it feel good driving all that way home at 6:00 pm at night knowing my girl did a fantastic job in really freezing conditions.

The next trial was this weekend March 2nd, at Adams County Fairgrounds. This was another NADAC trial and all we came for was two more Touch'n Go Q's to finish Dolcenea's 93 title.

We started off with Jumpers Elite and ended up with one "stupid" second over time! Boy I hate that crap, but Dolcenea had an absolutely beautiful run.  Chances was Chances, not a Chances in our case. Then onto two Regular runs with two Q's with 2nd and 4th place, not bad. Then we get to sit for four hours till our Touch'n Go runs.

It was 5:30 pm and we finally got to our first Touch'n Go run, Dolcenea ran it perfectly and pulled a 1st place Q! It doesn't get any better than that... at least that's what I thought. Now for the second run we came for, it's now 6:30 pm and we go to the line to run our final run of the day #6 after arriving at 7:15 am this morning. I've got a migraine, it's hot in the building and we are both exhausted. We take off and 35 seconds later Dolcenea finishes the course 1st place and Q and the ONLY dog to qualify in her class. I've said it before, it doesn't get any better than this! I'm so proud of this girl, Dolcenea finished title # 93! She's amazing!

Dolcenea will be considered a Veteran in NADAC, DOCNA and ASCA in two weeks! Yeah a lower jump height for the old but steady girl!