Finally we managed to get everyone up and moving long enough to get them into the car for another long drive back to the agility trial location. They all seemed happy when they realized where we were.
Wazzu picked up right where she left off yesterday. Ever since we’ve stopped having her do 12 weave poles she has really started enjoying agility again. She doesn’t have to worry anymore I guess. I don’t know….I just know that she loves agility again.
And she also loves her walks in between runs here. We've been walking up the dirt river. Here you can see the couple remaining trees - although they are dead and black. You can see that see that a few weeds are growing back.
One of the problems these big wildfires create is that they take away all the vegetation. So when it rains there is nothing to hold up the dirt and big dirt rivers are created.
Just like yesterday, she was perfect! She Q’d and got 1st place in all her runs. And she was so happy! She was way out in front of me working distance like you wouldn’t believe. In fact, she got an Elite Chances Q! It was not an easy one by any means. The discrimination was two tunnels and they had to take the outside one…and she did it! Then she had to weave at a distance….and she did that too! What a girl.
That reminds me. This is a huge arena. And when they set the courses they use the entire ring area which means everything is very spread out. So where sometimes you might see 12-15’ between obstacles, here we were seeing a good 20-25’ between obstacles. It was actually fun as the dogs really got to go full out and use their speed….or lose their concentration as happened with some of the dogs.
Slugger was really into agility today too. We are beginning to see a pattern. If we set up with everyone else so that he is in the midst of the action, he runs very well. But if we work out of the car or the RV he just sleeps all day and can’t seem to wake up or have energy to run. This weekend we were set up right next to the ring – which was really nice as I could see all the action.
Slugger was running very fast today doing his best little head bopping possible. In both his Regular run and his Jumpers run he was throwing up dust. I couldn’t believe this was my little boy. He is really becoming a real live agility dog. And get this, he was the only Novice dog to get the Chances! But darn – he was .12 over time. Many of the Novice dogs were getting distracted in one corner of the arena. Slugger got distracted – but once Mike got his attention back he did the course fast and perfectly. Way to go.
Sparkie had a bit of a rough day. This arena, while very nice, is extremely noisy. About a year ago we noticed that Sparkie has trouble hearing in noisy places. So when Mike would need to give Sparkie a strong “here,” Sparkie wouldn’t hear it and would go off course. She hates making a mistake so she started getting scared. So she only ended up with two Q’s today – but she really was running nicely and trying really hard. She just couldn’t hear the commands. Poor Sparkie.
Boogie, while he didn’t get to do agility, was a good boy. He never once jumped out of the ex-pen once! He’d get excited when he’d see us walking toward the ex-pen…he’d bark and bark and then when we got there he’d jump out of the pen and into our arms. As long as he knows to stay in there until we say it’s okay then I guess we’re good.
During one of our breaks I took Boogie out into one of the fields. Just as we got there, four border collies showed up. The ladies said they were all good with puppies so we let them all off leash. Those dogs all played so nicely. They all tried to herd Boogie. He ran and ran and darted this way and that all the while with four border collies right on his heels. They all had a great time. Boogie sure needed the exercise as he was pretty bored in the ex-pen.
The trial was full so we didn’t finish until after 5:00pm. It was really late by the time we drove all the way back to the RV. Seemed like there was barely enough time to feed everyone and go to bed so we could get up early again tomorrow and start all over.
Debbie
2/9/08
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