Last night was nasty! Though we didn't think it possible, today is even worse. It is in the high 30's, it is pouring down rain, and the winds are 25 - 30 miles an hour sustained. Literally the dogs will go out and lift their leg to pee and the wind would blow it back on to the dog. I was trying to walk back to the RV after Wazzu's run and I literally couldn't go anywhere as the wind was blowing straight into me. What should have been a three minute walk took me about ten minutes. It is just plain nasty!
But once you get inside the building all is fine. Today the "real" competition starts as there are the first two runs of Regular. The first group to run today was the Veterans, Jr Handlers, and Skilled jumping 8", 12", and 16".
The course was only 30 obstacles long. Sounds easy. Ah, but not so fast. The obstacles were very far apart and many in straight lines. I watched a number of dogs and didn't see one clean run. But I did see a lot of very tired people that just couldn't run the last few obstacles.
Wazzu seemed happy this morning although not as exhuberant as the last couple days. I didn't know if she would jump or not as she hasn't wanted to jump at all since the end of July. But we got to the line and she turned in to one happy energetic dog. She took off like a shot. In order for the dogs to stay on course you really had to be able to keep up. I was running as fast as I've ever run. I wanted to go faster but my legs wouldn't go. Wazzu had ideas of places she wanted to go but adjusted nicely once she understood what I wanted. She was going great then came the distance challenge. I was really worried about this - not due to the distance but there was a dummy jump right next to where the people had to run. Amazingly Wazzu didn't even look at the dummy jump! Then she did the discrimmination perfectly. Then came the problem. I was sucking wind and the legs just wouldn't go. Wazzu did the next tunnel but I was twenty yards behind. I told her to do the weaves that were another 20 feet in front of her but she (like almost every other dog) stopped to see where I was. She waited for me to catch up to her. I then had her do the weaves but she entered at pole two. So I had to pull her out and start again. She then did the last tunnel nicely. We were CLEAN!! Unfortunately between her waiting for me and then having to restart the weaves we added at least ten seconds to our time.
At the end when I go out off the arena floor, I am huffing and puffing so hard and was so light headed I had to lay on the ground. Wazzu got to have her breakfast! People came by and said it looked like I had Valley Fever not Wazzu. Anyway, I'm so proud of her. She didn't seem to have any trouble jumping and walked fine after the run.
On the way back to the RV I let Wazzu off leash to go do her business. She went way across the field. She was so happy when she finished that she ran back cutting and darting every which way. Problem was, the grass was extremely wet. Wazzu slipped and fell. She came up limping on her bad front right. Arg! I'm hoping that since she has a fairly long time before her next run she'll be able to rebound.
Sparkie is third to last dog in the last group so I suppose it could still be a a couple hours before she runs.
As soon as I know any more I'll be back!
High fives for my dear sweet girl Wazzu.
Debbie
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