Monster Match 2018

I took the girls to their first disc trial in almost two years! Wow! Time really gets away from you sometimes!  Being a secondary sport for us, disc tends to lose out to agility trials... and there are so many agility trials that there are frequently conflicts between sports.

Kili had a lot of fun but had a bit of a rough day. She slipped and fell on the second throw in her first game, and ended up doing a couple of rolls so I pulled her from the rest of her run to make sure she was okay (she was). She played well, but in typical not so focused Kili fashion, for the next couple games, and then seemed a bit off again in her last run so I basically pulled her from that one as well. I think she may have just been tired by that point as she didn't seem to be sore.

Kenna was a rock star though. We got off to a difficult start when she saw the ducks in the pen beside the field and wouldn't leave them alone. We ended up having to move the ducks in order to get her to focus. It was a bit surprising because she's my super focused dog, but also not surprising as she's my better chaser in lure coursing (though I'd still argue that Kili is my higher prey dog). But the rest of the day went quite well. Kenna even earned 2 ribbons. She was second in 4-Way Play and I was super stoked that she got fourth in Freestyle! It wasn't an overly exciting showing, but I was pretty happy with it considering we didn't have a routine and hadn't practiced any of our tricks in over a month. Maybe next time around I'll actually do some practice and come up with a real routine!

And although by most disc dogger's standards both of my girls are epic in their gentleness with their discs... there is a significant difference between Kili and Kenna. In our world, Kenna is a disc destroyer. I've bought her new discs after just 2 years - her old ones are salvageable but need to have all the rough edges ground down with a dremmel. Now, many disc dogs completely destroy discs in a single session, so I can't complain about not absolutely needing to replace discs after 2 years... but compare to Kili who still has discs from 5 years ago. Not only does she not puncture discs, she barely even leaves a mark. I think these photos illustrate the difference....

 As you can see, Kili basically catches with her incisors while Kenna chomps a whole mouthful!