Sunday, September 18, 2011

McKenzie Cascade Dog Fanciers Agility Day 2

Catching up again! I'd say the show was good last weekend but I hardly remember it now. LOL. We had to check out of the hotel and despite being exhausted the night before we stayed up later than we should have so the morning was a bit of a rush. We (my son and I) did make it in time, though, hauled our stuff and the dogs in, and I ran to walk the Standard course.

Before the day actually got started the trial secretary and club played the national anthem in honor of the 10th anniversary of the tragedy on 9/11. It was a nice touch and good to publicly remember.

We were running tall to small so big dogs were up in fairly short order. The first thing I'll comment on with regard to this course is how long the tunnel was and how much I dislike entrances such as for #3. Aside from that, I didn't have a lot to complain about. ;-)

Most people walking the course were concerned about getting into position for the weaves out of that tunnel. There's where being a little slower in the tunnel had its advantage. I wasn't calling Vegas back from the tunnel to line her up as I made it out and was able to queue her when she came out of the tunnel. I didn't give much thought to the #14 as an off course option when walking the course but almost caused it because I forgot how much of a pull back the line was from the #5 jump to 6-7. The next handling challenge was from the table. Some people tried to threadle the 11-13 sequence. For some that also meant on off course over the back of #7. I chose to go out in front of #11 and front cross to the 12 and 13.
We finished the course clean in 57.94 seconds. SCT was 69. I was ecstatic! We, correction, I have such a hard time with Standard. I always mess something up. This was amazing. 25 points between these two runs alone. I was so very proud of my girl, especially with my conservation AKA panicky handling. I was letting so much ride on the runs last weekend that I know my handling was pretty shaky. But Vegas dealt and did so well.

On to JWW....
Our judge apologized during briefing about the opening to this course. Since this trial was originally two judges, her designing additional courses somewhat last minute meant she didn't check them as she would have otherwise for such similarities. Let's just say most competitors didn't mind. After the #4 jump the big circle brought us back to another 180 and across the back stretch. The next challenge was to figure out how hard to push in for the tunnel but still be able to get back in front of #13. That way I led with Vegas on my left into the 13-18 sequence. Next I had to make sure I queued the weaves before losing her to the tunnel. From there we were home free...well, you never really think that until the last obstacle is clear and clean, but you know what I mean!

Guess who ran this clean and double-Qd again? My girl...2/2 JWW and 2/2 Standard for the weekend. I couldn't have been more happy. She did so well, and was so happy. Four points on JWW gave us a total of 30 points for the weekend. We also marked the halfway point in QQs and one-third of the way on points. What a weekend...

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