On Friday evening when I was stranded at the Cincinnati airport on account of weather and so forth I ran into USDAA judge Lois Mark who was also traveling to Chicago to serve as Masters judge for Contact Sports Agility. Lois is a well respected judge in the USDAA judging corps. Lois, if you ever get a couple beers in her, does an incredible impression of the Crocodile Hunter! Now that he is gone, it has probably spoiled her nightclub entertainment career, being a one-trick pony and all.

I came up in the agility world in Arizona. Back in those days I was very close to California, because everyone who played agility seriously had about a thousand mile traveling radius just to get in over a half dozen trials a year. So it was a special delight to be to renew acquaintances and see all the folks who’ve come up so strongly during my absence.

We’re undergoing a transformation in our sport that will have important consequences to exhibitors, agility organizations, training clubs, and training service providers… the semi-pro//recreational schism. I see the break in the community very clearly. The seed of the transformation was planted pretty much as the sport began in this country. But for the longest time the vast majority of our numbers came from the family dog of any breed with an emphasis on the recreational benefit of playing the game.

I’m back home again. Hazard had only three runs this morning and qualified in all three. I’ve been thinking back over the many years I’ve been playing this game. I’m pretty sure that I’ve never taken a dog into competition in the USDAA in a weekend and managed to qualify and place in every titling class. And that’s what Hazard did for me this weekend. She’s a good girl.

Well we’re off to a pretty good start. It’s noon as I write this. Hazard has run three times qualifying all three runs; with first placements in Starters Gamblers and Starters Standard, and a second placement in the Grand Prix Regional.

Check back at this page for whatever results and reports I decide to post, I'm hoping to have time and energy to do a lot of reporting.

Saturday June 30, 2007

Beans, Beans the Magical Fruit

I was supposed to have this week off. The training center is shut down for the week because of the Thanksgiving Holiday, and I’ve had no seminar or judging commitments. However, I’ve been conscripted to be an emergency substitution judge for a TDAA trial in Medina Ohio this weekend. The scheduled judge, Doreen Lucius has a terrible neck injury and has been forbade to travel by her doctor.

So, there is a  rumor going around this morning that as a result of the very public hammering that Karen Gloor took for her teeter judging in the GP finals, she has resigned from the USDAA judging corps. It may or maynot be true. But it brings to mind my big objection to the practice of "just putting it out there" on the internet.

 I'm in Bozeman MT at the moment, having finished the first of four four days of seminar training. I have some fans up here... and it looks like I'm making new ones. They're a fine bunch and fun to work with.