What arrived in mail today

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Today this certificate arrived along with some ribbons from a recent video event of RFE (Rally Freestyle Elements)!

This is a certificate for my new Freestyle (dancing) title called Vet MF/X (Veteran Musical Freestyle Excellent). I used to enter regular classes without the "Veteran" prefix, but last year Mum decided to switch me from regular classes to Veteran classes (for dogs who are eight years old or older) because she was not sure how long I would be able to continue to dance decent routines. At that time she was trying to stop my barking when I was dancing, but I couldn't stop barking because I was very aroused when dancing. I still bark sometimes but I managed to keep my mouth shut when we videoed my routine for the video event.

In a routine videoed for a previous video event Mum incorporated the "chin rest' in the routine in an attempt to calm me down so that I wouldn't start barking. This time she changed the part and replaced the chin rest with a simple move where Mum ran backwards while I ran forward keeping the position in front of her. With this performance I got my second qualifying score in the Veteran Intermediate class and as a result I got the Vet MF/X title.

I hope I can keep my mouth shut again when we video a routine next time!!

In the same video event Mint entered the Intermediate class. Mum was not sure if Mint's routine included enough advanced moves to qualify, but he did qualify as well. As it was his first qualifying score in the class, he will need two more Qs to get his Excellent title.

However, I am very impressed that he performed in such a difficult environment for the video. He did it in a park where we had found many chicken bones on the ground a few days before the videoing!! Mum was shocked when she saw many chicken bones on the ground, because she was planning to video Mint's routine there a few days later. Then, she let us find bones (As far as I remember, we found more than ten bones!) and picked them up before we got them, in order to clean the ground.

Here is Mint's performance in the park. In fact the judge commented "Nice work in an outside environment!"

Enjoying Rally-FrEe too!

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

After posting about Agility, we haven't been doing Agility much, because a physio who saw Mint recommended that he had a break from the sport.

Well, when Mint saw the physio, he was not lame or anything. But, Mum was very worried about strange movements of his muscles around his body. It is natural for us dogs to wiggle if the side of the body or the tummy is scratched, isn't it? But, in Mint's case, almost anywhere caused a large section of his body to twitch.

After a thorough examination the physio told Mum that Mint had several sore spots, which in fact explained why he didn't want to walk on his hind legs the day before. Also, he had been dropping rails when doing Agility, which was strange, considering that he can jump really high. So, now he has been having a break from Agility, and instead he has been getting Mum's massage and doing some stretching and muscle strengthening exercises every other day, if not every day.

However, we have still been doing Rally Freestyle Elements (Rally-FrEe).

Well, I just realised that we hadn't posted about Rally-FrEe much! OMG! The only post about Rally-FrEe in the past was two years ago! And it was about my failed attempt at demonstrating Rally-FrEe! At that time we had never done the sport, but a half year later Mint and I started competing in video events, as there aren't enough competitors to hold live events in New Zealand.

So far, we have competed in five Rally-FrEe video events and earned our Rally-FrEe Novice titles. In our last event that took place last month we entered the Intermediate class.

Last year there were times we didn't want to do Rally-FrEe at all, because Mum always got stressy when videoing our rounds. But, it seems she has changed her approach, and she looks more relaxed when she does it. If she feels relaxed, we feel relaxed too and can perform better. And in our last event we got qualified with very good scores.

For those who don't know what Rally-FrEe is, here are our video submissions for our last event.

This is my round, which qualified with a 2nd place on 189/200.

This is Mint's round, which qualified with a 1st place on 191/200 points.

When my round was videoed, no one else but the cameraman, our dad, was around. But, when Mint's was videoed, there were so many people around, because Agility class was brought inside as it was raining heavily outside. I was so impressed with how well Mint performed despite so many distractions!

Last Thursday our ribbons arrived!