Both girls had a very good weekend. Sparkie had some beautiful and fast runs. She had major competition this weekend – in fact the teams that finished 1st and 2nd in last year’s Championships were at this trial. Sparkie did very nicely finishing 2nd of these three teams this weekend. She did have a couple 1st place runs too. In the few runs that she didn’t Q, she and Mike accomplished some very good things. So every run was great! Sparkie ended up 7/11.
Wazzu sure knew which runs were important this weekend….kind of. The Columbia Cup is based on the Regular runs. It is based on who gets the most Regular Q’s and if there’s a tie it then it goes to the dog with the fastest yards per second. Wazzu Q’d in all four Regular runs! She was in the running for sure. Because she ran all four runs clean (meaning she Q’d in all four runs) I got a t-shirt that says “I ran Clean at the Columbia Cup.” Other people could buy a shirt that says “I ran a dirty at the Columbia Cup.” Wazzu was the only dog in the Performance Large Vet dog division to Q in all four runs. I’m so very proud of her.
Wazzu ran very happy all weekend except for one run. I really don’t get it. Sunday morning she ran her first run very fast and happy. Her next run, Jumpers, she would barely walk and then try to hop over the bars. I took her off the course after five jumps. Her very next run, which was only seven minutes later, she was fast again. Huh? I just can’t figure Wazzu out! Unfortunately we didn’t get either of our Chances runs. It’s been a long dry spell for us. It sure seems as though these courses are getting tougher by the week – not just for us but for even the best teams. Even so, Wazzu ended up 7/10.
This weekend was Slugger’s first try at agility since his latest ACL surgery. He just did one run a day – neither one included jumps. Unfortunately his one run a day was the very last run each day. So he’d been lying around sleeping in a very hot RV all day and then we ask him to wake up and run fast. He wasn’t super fast but he was fast enough to get his Novice Touch N Go title on Saturday! Whoo Hoo little man! His leg held up totally fine - that's the best news of all.
Wazzu ended up coming in 2nd place in the Veterans division of the Columbia Cup!! I’m so proud of her. I really thought we were going to get 1st place since we were the only large vet dog to Q in all four runs but somehow they announced us as second place. But either way it’s all good – Wazzu was so fast and happy in all her Regular runs – and that’s the best!! And the team that was announced as winning is a great team. In fact, they are one of my favorite teams - I've looked up to them for a long time!
The Columbia Cup portion of the trial though is going downhill a bit. First let me say, I'm not complaining at all - just making an observation. They used to be very organized and had ribbons for all the top finishers. This year some of the ribbons had the wrong wording and for some placements they forgot to get ribbons. We were one of the ones that didn’t get a ribbon. Not that we really need more ribbons – but Columbia Cup has more of a special meaning than most. They used to always get all the winners together for a picture – maybe they did and I missed seeing it but I sure didn’t even see a photographer around. And this year we had to wait close to two hours after the last run to get all the results. But nonetheless we still LOVE the Columbia Cup and are very thankful and grateful that they do this each year! I know this takes a lot of work for someone to put together and I'm sure it is expensive. We sure hope they keep doing it.
The trial itself was great. So nice and relaxed. It ran very smoothly and timely – the trial committee did a great job putting this all together so that we could have so much fun playing with our dogs! Way to go, Pat.
This was Boogie’s first real agility trial. He started learning the routine although I’m sure it will take a few more before he totally understands the routine. He totally loved going in the arena and meeting all the other dogs! Boogie was a good spectator as well sitting quietly on Mike’s lap and watching the action with much interest.
All in all, we had a great time and look forward to attending again next year!!
Debbie
9/8-9/07
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