Team Rebel

Y'all...go get yourself a dog who looks at you just like Denali looks at me. 💜
📷 Credit: Pawz to Pose Photography
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So, diving at the Cluster was pretty awesome this year. I got an Advanced AR Title & pulled out 2 Regionals Invites in AR & HD. I think that pretty much made me Best In Show. Or maybe it was Best Dressed In Show. Whatevs, same thing...💅🤣
~Denali
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"If you aren't competing at the this week, what are you even doing with your life??" 😂
~Denali
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The Team Rebel crew had an *amazing* time at NADD Nationals this year! Videos will follow, but here's our recap...

💜💙¡Arriba! - This was ¡Arriba!'s first season as a Veteran Dog. She breezed through her two Qualifier days, making Finals in both of her tightly competitive disciplines (Veteran Senior HydroDash & Veteran Junior Distance). She is a fast HD dog & it tends to surprise people that an 8 y/o GSD can pull off the times that she usually gets. I was excited for her to run HD at Nationals, all up until I realized that the HD pool was set up with a right hand ramp this year. ¡Arriba! is a left turn dog, and a right ramp means that she would lose time turning in more of a circle & then swimming diagonally back to the ramp vs straight back. So, I knew that we would be about a second or so longer than usual. Still, she's fast so we managed to Q for Finals mid-pack as the 7th seed. (The Top 15 Teams advance to Finals.) When Finals came, I knew if I could try to motivate her to come back as straight as she could on the left side of the pool, we could shave some precious time off of her score. And as we ran our first run, the stars aligned & her focus on the return remained fully on me instead of the ramp location, as I screamed my head off. As a result, she didn’t turn for the ramp until she was close to the banner on the edge of the dock, which was perfect. She nailed down a 16.354, which was amazing for a right ramp dock. We finished in second, just .048 behind the Team who took 1st.

In ¡Arriba!'s Division of Distance Finals, which is another tightly competitive group, we went is as the 6th seed & finished in 8th place overall.

💜🩷 Denali - The Flying Fruit Bat (IYKYK) was super amped up heading into Nationals this year...like moreso than I've ever seen her be before. Last year, she somehow managed to break her tail in 2 places at our last event of the season before Nats, so I had to pull her. This year, she apparently had a lot of smack to talk as a result, lol. She Qualified for Nationals in Open Senior HD & Open Junior DJ this year, both of which are suoer competitive, packed Divisions. In HD, we had 2 solid Qualifier runs, winding up mid-pack, in 52nd overall. In Distance, we hit a 14'8" in the Qualifiers, which was enough to Q for Finals as the 10th seed. We upped our game in Finals, and pulled out a 7th Place overall finish.

💜🩵 Scout - After spending the last part of last season on injured reserve, I wasn’t sure if Scout would ever return to popping and tracking off the dock again, especially at 11. But, she had a hold my beer season, returning to her former flying glory, clinching the last leg needed for her Senior Excellent Title & pulling clean runs at Regionals. I kept her "bubble wrapped" in the weeks heading up to Nationals, so she was ready to go in Springfield. We competed in Veteran Senior Distance & she posted beautiful jumps - tracking and flying on every single one. Most importantly, she remained sound and happy all week throughout her Qualifiers. We finished 18th overall, just outside of the Top 15 who advanced to Finals. But, I couldn't have been happier to be there with my best girl, and have her happy and pulling out her signature solid & beautiful jumps at 11 years old.

Sooo very proud of my Team this year!!

When your 11 year old dog just finished up competing at Regionals in Iowa with some gorgeous, high-flying jumps, and her name is Scout, and her walkup song is "Danger Zone", and there happens to be *THIS* installed outside of a stadium down at the end of the street that your Air BnB is off of... You park illegally, hop a retaining wall, climb a hill, perch her on a ledge and get pictures, naturally. 😆
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🎶A lady on a leash but a freak in the air🎶
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📷 Credit: Ron Junior Photography
📍: DARK K9 Wet & Wicked Qualifier

That post-adrenaline face when you wake up in the morning thinking it's just another day, but then you wind up at a DOCK!!!
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*NADD Nationals Update*
6 days, 5 pools, 2 fairground wings, tons of the very best vendors in the country, & over 700 dogs...the 2024 NADD National Championship & 10 Year Anniversary was a GREAT event! As always, it was wonderful seeing so many of my dog sport friends from the US & Canada again. Our collective Krewe showed up & showed out (we are now 2 year undefeated champs of the decorating contests at both Regionals & Nationals) 😄! Of course, our group of dogs also brought their A Games & together we took home an impressive pile of hardware!

Team Rebel sadly had some unfortunately timed injuries that required Scout & Denali to stay home this year. Scout went really hard late in the season, as many of our local events were held back to back & she was a little off at Regionals. While she earned a Veteran Invite, I decided that she needed to rest her muscles and sit Nationals out. Denali was on fire and all set to compete in her first Nationals as a HARD Charger, after winning her Division at Regionals. She then unfortunately managed to somehow break her tail in 2 different spots during the last event that we attended 2 weeks before Nationals. I initially thought it was Cold Tail, but after an xray, the fractures were confirmed, so she went on crate rest. (Yes, my Malinois got a Whippet injury. 🤦‍♀️)

We regrouped & I took ¡Arriba!, Superfly Malakai, Shannon's girl Luna, & zero expectations to Nationals.

💜 ¡Arriba! held an invite in HD going in, and I ran her in the LCQ for Distance. She *smashed* her jumps, loving the 50' pool & was the top qualifier in Junior. Her jumps wound up bumping her season average from 14'11" to 15'0", meaning that we had to run in Senior for Nationals. We went for broke & I launched her toy into another zip code to motivate her to put every last inch into her jumps. She set a new PB & then hit that TWICE! While it wasn't enough to carry her into Finals, I was super proud of her performance in the giant & very competitive Senior Division. Her HD runs wound up conflicting with her Distance jumps, so there wasn’t much downtime between the two disciplines. While she ran decent Senior HD times, they were a bit slower than her usual runs.

💙SuperFly Malakai had his Nationals invite in Veteran Distance. After the qualifying runs, he went into Finals as the 11th seed Qualifier. (The top 15 go to Finals & the Top 10 get placement awards.) I'm always proud of my Veteran dogs no matter what, but especially when they make it through to Finals! We were sharing the stage with many of my longtime friends and their wonderful Veterans. I truly wanted everyone to do well, but I told Kai that he had to bump up at least one spot for a rosette to avenge his injured sisters. He understood the assignment, bumped up & finished in 10th Place overall.

💜Luna ran in the LCQ for Veteran AR. We made it through to Nationals & she finished off the season by earning her AR Junior Title.

In the end, these 3 had the time of their lives & I'm very glad that I took them, despite Scout and Denali not being with us. Many thanks to NADD, the photographers, vendors & volunteers, who put on a wonderful event! Here's hoping that my crew will all be back to 100% next year!
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Kai took Splashy Steve for a warm up walk before Finals this morning, then Steve went on a righteous 80's adventure tour with ! I wonder what decade he headed off to next??
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Pre Q2 lineup selfies with Kai...we're in our headbanger era, literally.
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