The parking was on a hillside which made it quite tricky for those of us in RV's trying to get level. We actually got the most level spot but still had trouble getting level. The agility field was also on a little slope so we had to run up and down a slope while doing the courses.
Quite a few spectators came to watch and they were great. They stayed behind the lines and they were quiet - and just generally very well behaved. I guess someone from the local newspaper must have been there because the Sunday morning paper featured the agility trial on the front page – with three pictures even. Our good friend Karen Hunter and her dog Lindy were one of the pictures. We had very nice weather – some thought it was a little to hot on Sunday. I must say at times it was quite warm and a bit humid too. We were supposed to do a double shot Tunnelers Sunday afternoon but it just got to be so hot that they stopped it and changed it to two single runs. Wouldn’t you know that shortly after the decision was made, some cloud cover appeared and it wasn't hot at all.
But this is trial was put on by a great club. They seemed very organized, had a nice raffle, nice ribbons, nice little Q pins, beautiful NATCH ribbons and poles (which we got!!!!), a very nice hospitality tent, and great judges. One of the judges was from Arizona and we had met her when we'd been down there a couple times. She brought her dogs up with her and we ran them for her in a few runs each day. That was pretty fun. I ran Pokey (who sometimes fit her name) who is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and Mike ran Kody who is Border Collie. Boy did Mike have a blast. Running Sparkie and Kody both was a real rush for him. He was so excited when he and Kody ran clean and got 1st place. Kody's "mom" was excited too. Many people told Mike he should get a Border Collie!
Sparkie and Wazzu both ran very nicely and had a really good time. Wazzu and I were perfect all weekend except for Regular. One time she missed the last jump (there’s a story to that!!), one time she took the last jump – except we weren’t done!, and one time we were overtime by .3 – so disappointing!! Sparkie was perfect except for Regular as well. One of the Regular runs she was way above any other dogs performance. But wouldn’t you know on the 2nd to last obstacle (dogwalk) she missed the contact – by a lot! But she had one run where she was the fastest of all Elite dogs of any size – by 4 seconds!!
Wazzu and I got our NATCH-8 on the same Chances run as our friend Andrea and her dog Token got their NATCH-2. So when the 16” dogs were done, the judge told us both to come out and take a victory lap. We decided to do it together. So we had Token go first with Wazzu right behind. The dogs were loving it and the crowd was loving it as well. It was all working out fine until we got to the A-frame. Token runs to the top and stops whereas Wazzu loves taking air. So Taken stopped and Wazzu just about went flying over her. But Wazzu dodged right at the last second. No harm, no foul. When we finished Wazzu just ran over to Andrea and wanted lots of loving. Sweet Wazzu. It was really fun. I think pairs agility like that would be a great game!
We were able to leave around 4:00pm and had a nice uneventful trip back to Rochester.
Debbie
7/13-15/07
No comments:
Post a Comment