2023 West Coast Open (WOPEN) brags!

Dave brought 3 dogs to this year’s West Coast Open held in Paso Robles. While Elektra is no stranger to these big events, it was a first for both Tempo and Tess to compete at something like this.

Friday:

While Tess had a refusal in Rd 1 for her only run at the trial, she did great with all the big event chaos. Elektra and Tempo made it to Speedstakes Finals in the 20” class with Tempo finishing 6th in Rd 1 out of approx 100 dogs! Both had great Finals runs, and Tempo got to stand on his first Podium, taking 2nd place in the Finals! Auntie Elektra finished a strong 5th on a tricky course. #hatbackwards

Speedstakes 20” Podium - Tempo 2nd place

Elektra’s 5th place run in the 20” SpeedStakes Finals
West Coast Open 2023, Paso Robles

Tempo’s 2nd place run in the 20” SpeedStakes Finals
West Coast Open 2023, Paso Robles

Saturday -

Both Elektra and Tempo made it to Games Finals (Gamblers). Tempo was a bit too exhuberant and miss the on-course bonus but Elektra nailed it and finished 6th overall in Games.

Elektra was rock solid in Masters Series, finishing 4th in a tricky Masters Jumping that only 12 20” dogs survived with a score; a clean run in Masters Agility gave her 3rd place overall in the Masters Series. #hugsonabox

August 2023 - PASA ASCA Agility Brags!

Tempo took HIT-Novice and Quasar was awarded HIT-Open. Littermate Nugget was also in the running for HIT-Novice until the final runs on Sunday.

4 of the HIT dogs this weekend go back to the Taiko x Rubi cross: HIT Ace Slyder (Taiko x Rubi), HIT Elite Ember (Slyder x Khyan), HIT Open Quasar (Q x Stella) and HIT Novice Tempo (Q x Stella).

Tempo’s final Jumpers run of the weekend beat out Prima’s time by .22 and clocked in at 6.88 YPS!

Elektra places at the 2023 Premier Cup!

Elektra and Dave were invited to compete in the 2023 AKC Premier Cup in Ohio. These were super technical courses requiring a lot of control. Elektra ran great and ended up squeaking into the finals where she took 4th to some amazingly competitive teams!

Watch Elektra’s Premier Cup runs!

Winners in the 20” class - Photo by Great Dane photos

NAC 2023 - Elektra in the Finals

Dave and Elektra - not pictured, Elektra’s 7th place finalist ribbon and dog ribbon.
Photo by Great Dane Photos

The 2023 AKC National Agility Championships were held in Tulsa, OK in mid-March.

Slipstream was represented by two girls, Brio and Elektra. Elektra earned her MACH in 2022 and on the way qualified for the 2023 NAC, her first. She ran well on the surface, hitting all of her flying dogwalk RCs, and was ‘technically clean’ on all runs that weekend including warmups and Premier (she did run by the broad jump in Premier but it just cost time and was not a technical fault in that class). By the end of NAC Rd 3 she was seeded in lucky number 13th place out of almost 300 20” dogs and made the Finals.

Brio had a smoking Rd 1 in Standard, finishing 12th out of almost 300 dogs. Unfortunately a fault in a subsequent run kept her out of running for the Finals and Challengers runs.

ESPN filmed the finals, to be broadcast at a later date. The live footage can be found on akc.tv, Elektra’s run is around 1:10:30 after the awesome Golden Retriever, Voulez.

Elektra had a great Finals run and moved up several spots to 7th overall earning a few more ribbons. This was a huge accomplishment given the depth of the talent in the 20” class. She finished as the top “ABC” (anything but a [border] collie) in the 20” Regular class. Thanks to Monica Bush/Gritty Agility for keeping Elektra’s muscles happy and sound throughout the weekend.

Feb 2023 Agility happenings

The Slipstream dogs went to separate trials this stormy weekend.

Elektra (Buck x Boca) and Dave went to the Wine no Whine UKI West Coast Classic in Morgan Hill, where Elektra and Dave had some smoking runs on Sangie Brooks’ and Meagan Johnson’s courses, culminating in Elektra winning 16(s) Pentathlon, repeating her 20” win from the prior year!

Dave and Elektra’s winning Pentathlon Speedstakes run

Erika and Tempo (Q x Stella) competed in AKC Agility in Santa Rosa under Dan Butcher. Tempo excels at AKC math and often knows how many faults he can incur while still earning a Q. Things happen fast with this boy, but he did manage two faulted Standard runs that were Qs so now he has his OA! He had a great Jumpers run on Sat but I blinked during the weaves in Jumpers on Sunday so couldn’t act fast enough to preserve the Q. Regardless, Tempo loves the game and he is such a fun partner!