Sunday, October 18, 2009

Act-Up Trial

I am back from the trial. Today due to the inclement weather we had more scratches than I think I have ever seen at a trial! I was on the road for home, after staying to help break-down, by 3:30. That must be some sort of record.

Yesterday the weather ended up being really nice. Cold, but no rain. Carmie ran in her first Open Jumpers class and Q'd. She had a nice run. I think she was about a second under course time. Open is a lot tighter for her and the sun was actually out and bright when she ran.

Bug did not Q in Novice Jumpers. He had a tougher time of it. The judge was trying to beat the weather and during Jumpers asked that each dog be on the line as soon as the previous dog left the line. Katrin's Monty ran before us and all Bug could think about was playing with Monty. I think this would have been the case irregardless of the dog ahead of us. For his boy brain it was just too much.

I waited until I had eye contact, took his slip lead off, and he turned around to see if he could exit and play with Monty! Oops. I got him back and off we went. He handled up until the serpentine really nicely, then thought perhaps he needed to visit the judge. I was able to get him back pretty quickly. He then went around a jump, but once again I was able to get him back (without back-jumping) and complete the course.

Amazingly, Bug ran clean and was only over course time by .94 of a second. Wow.

I then left at noon to attend my workshop on Animal Communication. When I arrived I was told the class was cancelled due to low-enrollment. I was really frustrated - not only was I looking forward to the class, but I had paid to run Carmen in Regular and ended up missing the runs to attend the workshop. The woman had my e-mail and could have alerted me to the fact that she wouldn't be holding the class. They refunded my money and I have already enrolled in another seminar and will just attend that one.

We headed back to Wrentham and I ran both dogs in Tunnelers. It was a very nice, flowing course and both dogs Q'd and took first in their height/class (Open and Novice). The really funny thing is that the dogs had the EXACT same course time. This leads me to believe that the course time is actually MY time and the dogs base their speed off of me. What are the chances that they would have the EXACT same course time? This Q also finished Bug's Novice Tunneler title. Yay, Buggie. This is his first title!! And it was Carmie's second Open Q.

Today , as I said earlier, was not such a nice day. It rained non-stop all day and just got colder as we got along.

Carmie's Jumpers run was WILD. She was really booking and had three off courses into the tunnel. However, the joy was just too priceless. I could NEVER be upset with a dog when they are having that much fun. Well, I couldn't be upset anyway - that's the wrong word. Anyway, she had a blast.

I opted to run Bug because it was not raining that hard yet and the traction was good. He had a LOVELY run. There was another serpentine and he handled it really well - quite tight - I was very impressed. Q/1. Yay, Bug!

I ran Carmen in Regular 1 and Regular 2. In Regular 1 she had a SUPER run, sweet weaves, etc, until the second to last obstacle - which was a discrimination issue. Dogwalk versus tunnel. I stopped my forward motion, yelled Carmen really loudly. She actually stopped. I tried to get her over to me and to take the dog walk. She was stopped, she looked at me and then she said, "Nah...I want to do the tunnel." Stinker! It was still a very nice run.

Regular 2 she bobbled her weaves, I called her back to try again but didn't move back far enough and screwed up her entry again. Since it was pouring, cold, and my fault I said screw it and didn't try to fix it.

I scratched both dogs from Tunnelers since the rain had been unrelenting and at that point I thought it would be risky to run either one.

All in all it was a great weekend.

I am happy with how Bug is coming along. I wish we could have days like yesterday more often - it would allow Carmie to run a bit longer. We now have one more NADAC trial this year on 11/14. That will be in a horse barn. We'll see how it goes.

I almost forgot to mention that Darwin, who is owned by Kris (who has Bug's niece Bette and is half-brother Ransom) finished their NATCH today!! Apparently Darwin loves mucky weather. They had a GORGEOUS Regular run and a nice Chances run. In Chances he had to yell at his mum a bit but finally decided to do what she wanted! Congratulations, Kris and Darwin.
Corgi Power!

6 comments:

Katrin said...

Glad you had such good runs!

Diana said...

Congrats on all your runs and "Q's". Sounds like you had lots of fun. Good for you! Diana

Sara said...

Congratulations on all your Q's & title. Sounds like you had a great weekend.

Too bad about the seminar.

penni said...

I love reading your accounts of runs. It feels as if I was there to cheer you on.

Dawn said...

Bad weather and cancellations aside, the Q's sound great so what a good weekend. Congratulations on Bugs first of many to come.

Blue said...

That's very frustrating about the Animal Communications seminar! It sounds like you had a good time at the trial anyway.