Nari vs the 4 Paw Performance Club USDAA trial in Marietta, GA (May 14-15, 2011)

Hello. My name is Inara. 

I do agility last weekend. 

I win three titles. 

I love agility and Steffi the most! 

Yes, that's right - Nari finished three more titles this weekend! 
Tournament Master - Bronze (TM-Bronze)
Jumpers Master (JM)
Snooker Master (SM) 


The trial actually ran out of Q ribbons so she's missing some ribbons in that picture :) Nari got Qs in Steeplechase (2nd), Grand Prix (3rd), Masters Standard (1st), 2 in Masters Jumpers (1st and 3rd) and a SuperQ (2nd) in Masters Snooker! 


And - my crappy handling won us a bottle of wine in the NQ raffle! Way to go with crappy handling :) 

One more thing - I was looking on the USDAA website this week and Nari is/was ranked 19th in the US in USDAA Tournaments and 18th in Masters Standard! WHAT?! Actually, it's a ranking for all countries that hold USDAA trials, so I'm just going to go ahead and say she's ranked in the top 25 in the world :) I took a screen shot of it because I'm sure we won't be that high on the list for long, but for now - Nari's up there! So.. here's the proof:
Tournament Top Ten list (as of 5/16/2011):

Masters Standard Top Ten list (as of 05/16/2011):

And that awesome photo of Nari weaving was taken by Laughmiller Photography. 

Nari at the MadCo trial in Crozet, VA

Okay - so in my last post, I talked about Starbuck's USDAA debut at the MadCo trial. Now it's time to talk about Nari! 


Nari was also entered in this trial and she did quite well considering how muddy it was out there. Here are the highlights:
- Finished her first Masters title in a titling class - Standard Agility Master! It was kind of an ugly run because I was slipping, but hey - it was still clean and we had fun :) 
- Got first place in Grand Prix so we also won a bye for regionals!!! 
- Qualified in all 3 tournaments
- Got her second SuperQ in Masters Snooker


Here are a couple of her runs from the weekend:





Anna Eifert (she's on the Hungarian World Team) was there so we got to watch her amazing runs! Her partner was there taking pictures for the trial and when we came up to look at the photos, Anna was excited and said to me "You are the one with the Alaskan Klee Kai!" She thought Nari was so cute that she posted some of Nari's pictures on her personal facebook page! I had to run the comments through Google translate to read what people were saying. Here are the amazing photos we got of Nari (and you can check out more of their work at agility-gallery.com):

I love that she looks so focused on the teeter.

I think that dogwalk sequence has got to be some of my favorite pictures of Nari.

Nari rarely knocks a bar, but the start was in a huge mud puddle and she was sliding! The photographer made sure to tell me that I ruined this picture by stepping in the frame :) 

Running, running running! 

Can you see the spot of mud between her eyes? I don't know how she does it, but all the dogs out there could be covered in mud and she will only have a little on her paws and maybe a spot or two elsewhere. 

Nari was looking quite happy out there on the course.

Nari seems to have fun weaving!

And that rainbow ribbon on her neck is for her Standard Agility Masters title. She got Qs in DAM (6th), Steeplechase (2nd), and Grand Prix (1st) tournaments. Also got Qs in Masters Snooker (Super Q, 1st), Pairs Relay (1st), Standard (2nd), Team Gamblers (2nd), and Team Standard (2nd). 

Had a great time at this trial! 

Starbuck's USDAA debut!

Nari was signed up for a trial in Crozet, VA April 29-May 1 and we decided to would make it a little family vacation. Well, when I got the final confirmation for the trial they said they were low on entries so I emailed the trial secretary to see if I could sign up Starbuck for a couple of runs. They were able to squeeze Starbuck in so she got to try out USDAA! When we got there the fields were basically a mud pit (they even had to redesign the courses to try to avoid the larger puddles) so I ran the girls a little slower. 


I only signed her up for 4 runs - Performance Speed Jumping tournament, two Level 1 Jumpers and one Level 1 Gamblers. Aaron was able to record some of her runs:



I was so excited that she had fun and was able to stay focused for most of her runs with all of the distractions (people, dogs, muddy ground with lots of worms...). She even got a Q with 1st place in Round 1 of Performance Speed Jumping and a Q/1st place in Level 1 Gamblers. 


With a Q in Round 1 that meant she got to run in Round 2 for the money. That run was in the muddiest field which apparently smelled awesome - here is her run:



Whoa - that was a lot of work to win $5 :)


Afterwards she got to pick out a toy (she went for the quaky duck). She also got a massage. 


And here is Starbuck's first USDAA ribbon picture!

Nari's first Masters title!

Nari and I packed up the car and headed to Murfreesboro, TN a couple of weeks ago. It was a 3 day trial run by Happy Dog Ranch - love their trials. We entered in all 3 tournaments. We didn't put together a team before hand but we totally lucked out and had an amazing draw team - a super fast BC named Shine and super fast sheltie named Stuff - both had amazing handlers. We ended up getting Qs in all three tournaments and our DAM team even took 1st place!! And you know what you get for first place - a shiny gold agility medal - it even has agility equipment on it:

And 5 seconds after I took this picture, I turned around and Nari was rolling around the mud while wearing her medal. 


I was also proud that we qualified in Grand Prix because the only other team that qualified in our height group was Cheer and Jean! Oh - and we finished our first Masters title - Nari is now a Tournament Master!


Here are a couple of Nari's tournament Q runs:



Another highlight of the trial was we got to run the Masters Relay with Jean and Cheer - 1st place and Q:



We were also so close to getting a SuperQ in Snooker. We got a lot of practice on threadles in this run:



And here are a couple of other runs from the trial:



I also learned that my shoes are pretty crappy - I was sliding around a lot so I'm on the lookout for some shoes that will grip better in dirt arenas! 


We had a blast at that trial. I love all of the people who trial in our area - they have been so nice to us.