This morning everyone was eager to get things going. But we weren’t allowed to go inside to set up until noon (which seemed plenty early). So about 10:30am while waiting for time to go in, I took Wazzu and Boogie for a little walk. Boy was it cold! It had been sprinkling earlier but fortunately the rain had stopped when we went out.
When we got to one of the fields it just so happened that there were three other PNW folks there with their dogs. All the dogs were off leash so I let mine off as well. When we arrived, the dogs were all just sauntering around. But not so once Boogie got off leash. He took off running and a couple of the dogs started chasing him. Wazzu and Wendell both wanted to be the “fun police” so they had to be held.
I think Boogie was having fun but I wondered as he had his tail between his legs. He never ran to me or hid behind anyone but I do think he was a bit worried. The dogs were being way nicer than my three dogs play with him so I’m not so sure why he was scared. Sure wish my guys would play as nicely with him as Wally did.
Anyway, finally we ended up holding most of the dogs so Pinot could play with Boogie. Pinot, who is eight years old, has never played with another dog….ever. But he loved playing with Boogie. Kim was so happy to see Pinot play! They played about 15 minutes before Pinot got tired. It was a great play session for Boogie as well – I think he liked getting to play with someone his own size.
People started gathering and vying for spots closest to the door so they could be the first to enter. A few minutes before noon, Sharon came out and gave everyone instructions about entering orderly with no pushing and shoving saying there would be plenty of crating space.
It really is amazing how fast us agility folks can get our little cities set up. I guess we’ve all had plenty of practice! Within a very short time it was wall to wall crates.
The Mason’s are definitely the “poor folks” of the bunch. We have a floor mat, an x-pen, a chair, and a crate. That’s it. Then you walk by so many of the others. They have tables with table cloths decorated with fresh flowers, awards, candy, balloons, etc. Many have plush carpets, pictures, ipods, computers, recliners, cases of water and pop, and more food than we have in our RV! It’s really amazing to me all the stuff people bring! How did they do that – I guess not too many people flew!
I know one thing for sure. MANY more people came in RV's this year. I'm guessing there were about 25-30 RV's last year. There are probably three times that many this year.
Shortly after set-up, Sharon held a short briefing. Not much information was really given however there was one new and interesting item announced. As with every year in the past, there are five rounds of Regular and a Finals round. This year I guess they are borrowing something from your family-friendly golf game. The mulligan. If you aren't satisfied with any of your first four runs you can take a mulligan and do it over. But whatever you do in the re-run will be your score. So if you do worse in your re-run that's too bad. I'm thinking that you'd only want to do a re-run if you did really horrible in your original run. You only get one re-run and of course you don't ever have to take a mulligan.
It should be interesting to see how this impacts the event. It could be very interesting - kind of adds a little extra bit of strategy. The question was brought up "do you get bonus points if you don't use a mulligan." Hmmm, good point. Seems like you should get some kind of bonus for being good on all your original tries. Oh, my that could get confusing. Anyway, it will be something new and will be interesting to see different peoples strategy. I think I have a strategy that no one else has thought of - but of course I can't tell you as I don't want to give away any ideas. The only thing I know for sure is that the days are going to be even longer with this new rule.
But what the heck. There is nothing else to do around here anyway and we all came here to do agility. Now everyone just gets more for their money either by running more or watching more.
This evening we had a good old thunderstorm. My goodness did it ever rain hard. Thunder doesn't really worry any of our guys much but his thunder was super loud. So we just turned the TV up a little bit and they all went right back to sleep.
Fortunately the storm passed in just a couple hours so that we got our internet back so I could make this post.
Well everything starts super early tomorrow morning so it's early to bed for us on the eve of the 2007 NADAC Championships.
Debbie
9/18/07
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