(Gillette, WY) What a night. Not five minutes after posting yesterday's post we lost internet and TV. Where we are in the RV park we are higher than the surrounding area. We can see for miles! Well we had quite the show as lightening filled the sky all around us. Unfortunately it also poured buckets and the wind was whipping through the area. The thunder literally rocked the RV. Poor Slugger had to sleep under Mike's legs all night.
I couldn't sleep as I was so worried about all the poor people that are sleeping in tents! How horrible is it that they get totally sopped the very first night. They'll probably be soggy all week. There are quite a number of tents - I haven't checked to see if they are still standing after that horrible wind.
Anyway, it was still nasty when we first got up but it is clearing up nicely - although it is still pretty chilly at noon.
At 7:00am this morning the 2007 NADAC Championships got underway.
First came the national anthems of the U.S., Canada, and NADAC (?). Paul played the accordion and was accompanied by Karen on the trumpet. Leading the singing was Chelle. (Sorry for the blurry picture - it's dark inside and I couldn't use a flash.)
Then there was a briefing by Sharon before we all started walking Jumpers.
Today all runs will go small to tall. I'd say it was about three hours before Wazzu and I ran. Wazzu was really fast and happy. Usually when she is really fast I can get more distance. Since the ground has very deep long ridges the length of the ring about every five inches apart, I was trying to be very carefully with my steps and wanted to take as few as possible. So about three quarters the way through I turned a little to save some steps thinking she would stay out. But she cut in to me and missed a jump. Darn we were going SO FAST. Then coming down the home stretch I again gave her a lot of distance as the ground was the worst in this stretch but she cut into me and missed a few jumps - but I didn't care by then as we'd already messed up so I just ran fast and happy with Wazzu. We came in 3rd to last, but Wazzu had a huge smile - and so did I as it's so fun to get to play with a happy Wazzu.
Sparkie and Mike ran about half an hour later. After the first three jumps you have to call the dog off a tunnel and do a sharp turn. Sparkie hates this as she thinks she's done something wrong when she gets called off an obstacle early in the course. So she was a little slow for the next few obstacles but then she figured out that all was good. Then she was blazing. It was a very pretty run. Sparkie thought a 22 obstacles jumpers course was way fun.
PNW Jumpers Results: clean runs only......
8" Bill Judge and Rosie 2nd place
16" Kim Wiklof and Pinot 13th place
20" Bart Pierce and Pulse 2nd place
20" Susan Perry and Chevy 5th place
20" Susan Perry and Harley 10th place
20+ Michael Bruce and Jule 6th place
20+ Mike Mason and Sparkie (yippee!) 10th place (out of 50 dogs!!)
New this year at the Championships is a new division called Super Stakes. I won't explain the whole thing but in short it's for those people that think they have super duper distance with their dogs. For being brave enough to enter this division they all got a really cool embroidered jacket. They also get to have one mulligan each of the f1rst three days. Even though there is no way Wazzu can do all the distance I wish I would have entered. There are so few dogs entered that we would have got a ribbon in every single class - okay so it most likely would have been 6th place, which is last, but it still would have been fun to get ribbons. We would have been totally humiliated though so I guess it's a good thing we didn't enter. Tee hee.
PNW Jumpers Super Stakes results: clean runs only
16+" Vet Karen Hunter and Quickie 1st place!!
Next was Tunnelers.
Wazzu was once again very happy. She was fast but Wazzu and I had a big bobble as I just couldn’t get up to where she needed to go and she is in Service Dog mode today – even though she is going fast she wants to come to me after every obstacle. I just couldn’t get near the next tunnel so she came back to me. I’m guessing we lost at least four (maybe more) seconds. We ended up getting a Q! Yea for Wazzu. I was so happy to see Wazzu so fast and smiling. That's just the best.
Sparkie had a very nice run too. She was fast and clean. Sparkie ran really nice – but the ending was three straight tunnels out. You just couldn’t be up with the dog if you had a really fast dog. Sparkie just isn’t used to going that far out in front of Mike so she did the first two tunnels but then had a spin to go back to Mike before the last tunnel. That cost a second or two and kept them out of the placements.
PNW Tunnelers Results: clean runs only....
I couldn't sleep as I was so worried about all the poor people that are sleeping in tents! How horrible is it that they get totally sopped the very first night. They'll probably be soggy all week. There are quite a number of tents - I haven't checked to see if they are still standing after that horrible wind.
Anyway, it was still nasty when we first got up but it is clearing up nicely - although it is still pretty chilly at noon.
At 7:00am this morning the 2007 NADAC Championships got underway.
First came the national anthems of the U.S., Canada, and NADAC (?). Paul played the accordion and was accompanied by Karen on the trumpet. Leading the singing was Chelle. (Sorry for the blurry picture - it's dark inside and I couldn't use a flash.)
Then there was a briefing by Sharon before we all started walking Jumpers.
Today all runs will go small to tall. I'd say it was about three hours before Wazzu and I ran. Wazzu was really fast and happy. Usually when she is really fast I can get more distance. Since the ground has very deep long ridges the length of the ring about every five inches apart, I was trying to be very carefully with my steps and wanted to take as few as possible. So about three quarters the way through I turned a little to save some steps thinking she would stay out. But she cut in to me and missed a jump. Darn we were going SO FAST. Then coming down the home stretch I again gave her a lot of distance as the ground was the worst in this stretch but she cut into me and missed a few jumps - but I didn't care by then as we'd already messed up so I just ran fast and happy with Wazzu. We came in 3rd to last, but Wazzu had a huge smile - and so did I as it's so fun to get to play with a happy Wazzu.
Sparkie and Mike ran about half an hour later. After the first three jumps you have to call the dog off a tunnel and do a sharp turn. Sparkie hates this as she thinks she's done something wrong when she gets called off an obstacle early in the course. So she was a little slow for the next few obstacles but then she figured out that all was good. Then she was blazing. It was a very pretty run. Sparkie thought a 22 obstacles jumpers course was way fun.
PNW Jumpers Results: clean runs only......
8" Bill Judge and Rosie 2nd place
16" Kim Wiklof and Pinot 13th place
20" Bart Pierce and Pulse 2nd place
20" Susan Perry and Chevy 5th place
20" Susan Perry and Harley 10th place
20+ Michael Bruce and Jule 6th place
20+ Mike Mason and Sparkie (yippee!) 10th place (out of 50 dogs!!)
New this year at the Championships is a new division called Super Stakes. I won't explain the whole thing but in short it's for those people that think they have super duper distance with their dogs. For being brave enough to enter this division they all got a really cool embroidered jacket. They also get to have one mulligan each of the f1rst three days. Even though there is no way Wazzu can do all the distance I wish I would have entered. There are so few dogs entered that we would have got a ribbon in every single class - okay so it most likely would have been 6th place, which is last, but it still would have been fun to get ribbons. We would have been totally humiliated though so I guess it's a good thing we didn't enter. Tee hee.
PNW Jumpers Super Stakes results: clean runs only
16+" Vet Karen Hunter and Quickie 1st place!!
Next was Tunnelers.
Wazzu was once again very happy. She was fast but Wazzu and I had a big bobble as I just couldn’t get up to where she needed to go and she is in Service Dog mode today – even though she is going fast she wants to come to me after every obstacle. I just couldn’t get near the next tunnel so she came back to me. I’m guessing we lost at least four (maybe more) seconds. We ended up getting a Q! Yea for Wazzu. I was so happy to see Wazzu so fast and smiling. That's just the best.
Sparkie had a very nice run too. She was fast and clean. Sparkie ran really nice – but the ending was three straight tunnels out. You just couldn’t be up with the dog if you had a really fast dog. Sparkie just isn’t used to going that far out in front of Mike so she did the first two tunnels but then had a spin to go back to Mike before the last tunnel. That cost a second or two and kept them out of the placements.
PNW Tunnelers Results: clean runs only....
8" Bill Judge and Rosie 2nd place
8" Claire Bland and Ralph 8th place
12" Linda King and Robby 3rd place
Phew, 10:15 and we finally ran. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to wake Wazzu up but she was a real gamer and ran very nicely. Both Wazzu and Sparkie were clean. It's now 10:55 and it's too late for more details. I'll get results for Weavers and Touch N Go in the morning.
Debbie
9/19/07
PS Here is one last picture.
This was our first walk-thru this morning.
16" Kim Wiklof and Pinot 15th place
20" Bart Pierce and Pulse 2nd place
20" Susan Perry and Harley 4th place
20" Katherine Martucci and Dazzle 5th place
20" Susan Perry and Chevy 6th place
20" Karie Hammargren and Elf 8th place
20" Michael Bruce and Xena 17th place
20" Micki Lagrou and Wendell 22nd place
20" Scott Imlay and Jade 25th place
20+ Susan Perry and Lacey 3rd place
20+ Andrea Dexter and Ceilidh 6th place
20+ Mike Mason and Sparkie 16th place
20+ Teresa Jewett and Bogie 26th place
20+ Debbie Pierce and Kobie 27th place
20+ Amanda Gross and Fizz 34th place
20+ Andrea Dexter and Token 39th place
20+ Debbie Mason and Wazzu 42nd place
( I didn't count but I was told there were 80 dogs in this class)
PNW Super Stakes Results: clean runs only....
16" Amanda Gross and Hope 2nd place
At about 5:00pm we are finally ready to start Weavers. Sparkie had a very nice run. She had a great line and no bobbles at all. I don't think she could have done any better. But with her long legs she just can't weave as fast as the Border Collies.
It's now 8:30pm and we are getting ready to start Touch N Go. There are over 200 dogs in this class. So instead of having a 20 or more obstacle course they've shortened it to just 10 obstacles. And they've decided to cancel the other run we were to do this evening. Good thing as we'll be going well past midnight tonight. We're near the end at dog 179 and dog 184. So we won't be the last ones out of the building tonight but pretty close to it. But what the heck - we don't have to be back until 6:45am tomorrow.
Phew, 10:15 and we finally ran. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to wake Wazzu up but she was a real gamer and ran very nicely. Both Wazzu and Sparkie were clean. It's now 10:55 and it's too late for more details. I'll get results for Weavers and Touch N Go in the morning.
Besides being a long day for us, it was a very long day for the dogs - especially for Slugger and Boogie. Those poor boys. They were so good even though all they got was a couple potty walks. Late this evening Boogie actually ate a couple pages of Mike's Thomas Guide so we can't go to a few places now as we have no map! But little Boogie could have done much worse damage so we got very lucky.
We had planned on getting them out more but my legs gave out fairly early in the day and Mike got pulled into doing a log of volunteer work for many hours. Hopefully tomorrow Mike will have more time to spend with the boys.
With such a weird schedule we didn't eat well today either. Both lunch and dinner consisted of potato chips. Oh, but we did have some fruit tonight - we had lemon cake. That must count as fruit, right? Tomorrow we've got to do better!
Debbie
9/19/07
PS Here is one last picture.
This was our first walk-thru this morning.
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