Today was momentous in the fact it was Sparkie’s first day running as a Vet. For the very first time ever at any trial we’ve been to there were no 20” Elite dogs. The biggest class was the Elite 16” vets – with a whopping six dogs, all of which we knew.
We didn’t think the lower bar height would bother Sparkie at all. But interestingly enough, it really threw her off. She couldn’t figure out her stride at all and was knocking a number of bars. You could see her doing a lot of stutter steps. She really was confused. But Mike went along like all was good giving Sparkie the opportunity to figure it out without being scared. As Saturday went along she seemed to be getting a bit of a handle on it.
By Sunday she was doing much better at it and she picked her speed back up to her normal rocket speed. In fact she was so speedy that the first run of the day she flew off the dogwalk from half way up the ramp. None of us were sure we’d ever seen a dog leave the dogwalk from that distance - and stay perfectly in stride. Needless to say, Mike couldn’t let her get away with that! So they went into training mode. From then on she got Q1 in every run. She ended the weekend with a very respectable 9/13. One of the missed Q's was Hoopers – I’ll talk more about that later.
Even though I thought the conditions would be perfect for Wazzu she didn’t really want to run most of the time. The surface was perfectly smooth soft green grass, the wind was blowing, and for half the day it was cool. She never walked but other than a couple runs here or there she certainly wasn’t the speedy dog she can be. I really thought we could do the Chances run on Sunday IF Wazzu was really running. However, she started out really slow even though it was a nice sequence – a straight line of jump, A-frame, jump, tunnel. Of course we couldn’t go near the last jump and tunnel in either direction. She did the first three obstacles then just stopped as the tunnel was 20' out to the side and about 30' straight out. I kept telling her tunnel - she'd take one step toward the tunnel and then stop and come toward me. I kept insisting on the tunnel and she kept taking a few steps and again coming toward me. At one point I was very worried that she was going to cross the line. But finally she seemed to figure out what I meant and trotted off and did the tunnel. Then she started to come toward me as there was an off course jump near me. Miraculously she went back out (really far out) and did a few jumps before having to do a discrimination - which she did perfectly. Wow, after a LONG drought we finally got a Chances Q! Thank you Wazzu! Even though she wasn't her fastest, she was pretty consistent and ended up going 8/12. Like Sparkie, one of the missed Q's was Hoopers - once again, more about that later.
Slugger got to participate this weekend as well. Saturday both his runs were late in the afternoon when it was really hot. He likes hot weather - but only for sunbathing. So trying to get him to run was rather difficult. He did his runs clean but was about seven seconds over time in each one. Sunday he had one run in the morning when it was still cool. Mike did his best to get Slugger all excited before his run.
It worked! Slugger got a second place Touch N Go Q! Yea, Slugger. His second run on Sunday was in the afternoon and once again he was too slow - but he was still clean. We were very pleased with him after having been off of agility for so long due to his surgery. Hopefully his eagerness (and speed) will return soon.
The trial location was right next to the Boulder City airport. It was noisy at times with all the planes and helicopters coming and going. Quite a number of the planes were going up full of skydivers. Every so often we'd see six or seven parachutists floating down from the sky and landing right next to the agility field. What a view of the trial they must have had!
Saturday at the end of the day they ran one run of Hoopers. But this was Phase III Hoopers - we never saw Phase II. I think a few years ago I would have enjoyed Hoopers which is similar to USDAA Snookers. Wazzu and I were really good at that. But now that NADAC is encouraging distance - and that's what I'm really trying to work on with Wazzu - I don't really want to do something where you really have to keep your dog close to you. Both Wazzu and Sparkie were running fast and happy during Hoopers but didn't make it. Sparkie ran past a test obstacle with all four feet but didn't go back and do three outside hoops before starting the test again - so they failed. Wazzu also ran past the test obstacle with four feet but we did go back out and do three more test obstacles. We then did the test again successfully but by then we were over time.
What we noticed after watching all the dogs was that even though you are allowed to fix an error, you can't make time by doing so. Therefore, if you make an error during the run you are out of luck. I didn't think Phase I was all that exciting but I had a lot of fun running it. I can't say as though I had fun with Phase III - but maybe I'll like it better after this weekend. I hope so as this weekend we have three Hoopers runs. Hmmmmm.
Debbie
10/6-7/07
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