With shorts and t-shirt weather (for most people) in the middle of winter it was a great day for agility. We weren’t the only ones fleeing the cold weather. We got to see some of our good friends from Nevada, Maryland, and New Jersey. Talk about a long way to drive to do agility in the warmth! All of them came out just for this trial. Now that is dedication to the sport...or a real desire for some warm weather!
Sparkie picked up where she left off yesterday. She really was brilliant. For a dog that doesn’t get to practice she is really coming along. Slowly but surely she is feeling more and more comfortable working at a bigger distance. The judge we had today is certified to do boxes so there was a box on many of the courses. The competitors down here are really into distance work. They have NADAC style distance classes and distance practices each week. So when lines were on the courses today the competition really heated up. It was so fun to watch not only the successful runs (of which there were many) but the oh so close runs as well. Sparkie and Mike tried the box on the Chances course. It was difficult and they came so close – just one very slight redirect. So even though Mike did stay behind the line they didn’t get the box but they did get the 10 point Q. So I’d say Sparkie had a great weekend going 12/13! It was obvious that she’d missed agility as it had been a full month since we trialed. She let Mike know what her favorite activity is for sure!
Slugger continued his head bopping today….just so cute! How fast did Slugger run? He was 19.5 seconds UNDER course time in Weavers! Needless to say, he got a 1st place Q. He was so happy in his Regular run that he just missed the contact on the dog walk. So close. His jumpers run was super. This was a very twisty course but he did it like a pro – grabbing another 1st place Q. What a guy.
Wazzu was still in a great mood which made me so happy as I really wanted to Q in every run today. I had entered her in Novice Weavers though I had not planned on actually running her in it. But since she was so happy and it was first thing in the morning, I decided to give it a try. Great decision! She zoomed through the course doing each set of poles faster than the previous set. Wow, more than 20 seconds under time! She continued her happy ways, getting a 1st place Q in both Regular runs, Jumpers, and Weavers. All we had left was Elite Chances…and this course was perfect for us. I knew we could do this course. She did a perfect out to a jump, then she had to turn toward me to do a jump. I stopped, turn my shoulders, and called her nice and early. What did the silly girl do. She totally ignored me and went on the dogwalk. WHAT?! Why did you do that Wazzu? I did everything just perfectly – she just didn’t pay any attention. She stopped at the top of the ramp and looked at me. You could just see her say, “oops.” So I called her back and we started over. This time she did the entire course perfectly – even the hard distance and discrimination that was later on in the course. But of course it didn’t count.
Everyone’s heart sunk. As you probably know, Chances is our nemesis. But this particular run was even more momentous…or should have been. My goal for quite some time has been for Wazzu to earn 10,000 points. That Chances run would not only have given us a very important Chances Q but it would have been our 10,000th point. It would have been so fun to get it at a trial where we know so many people. I have no doubt we’ll get it at our next trial. But we’ve never been to that part of the country and we don’t know anyone there so there won’t be anyone to celebrate this HUGE accomplishment. Oh well, Wazzu and I will celebrate it some time in a meaningful way together.
I just have one goal left for my sweet Wazzu and I’m really hoping we’ll accomplish it sometime this summer when we’re home with all our friends. But we’ve got a lot of work to do…so we’ll see.
Yes, Boogie was here today as well. He kept up his job of making sure there wasn’t one molecule of food anywhere on the ground. I don’t think I saw his face once all day. I take that back, I did see it once when he jumped out of the x-pen and came running across the field to me. Mike was in the x-pen with him and was supposed to be watching Boogie. But I guess Boogie waited for the one second that Mike’s attention was turned and then in one easy jump he was up and over and gone. Good thing he just wanted to be with me! That’s a pretty impressive jump for a little guy if you think about it!
Overall, we had a very nice weekend with good weather, good food, nice courses, happy dogs, lots of Q’s, and nice people to share it all with.
I hope we have many more weekends like this one.
Debbie
1/13/08
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