Well it was a nice trip to Kansas for the USDAA trial - warm weather (70 in February!) and a relaxing environment.
On Friday, we only had two runs, Gamblers and Snooker. Double NQ. Ugh. Skye ran a nice opening in Gamblers but then spazzed on the gamble. He botched it before it even started - I thought the Jump to Tunnel part was easy, and then it was going to be tough from there, but he jumped, put his nose to the ground and spaced, then back jumped. I'm going to give that one to Skyeboy. Snooker was using a tunnel/jump/jump sequence for the 7pt, but Skye knocked one of the bars, and then in the closing, he knocked the bar on the #4 jump, so we were done. Lets give that 1/2 to me and 1/2 to Skye.
Saturday started with a repeat of Friday - a Gamblers and Snookers, then Grand Prix, Steeplechase and Standard. We had a good run in Gamblers and got the gamble for a Q.
Snookers looked like it was going to turn out great. We opted for doing 4 reds, but after my 4th red, Skye cut behind me and took the 4th red again. Done. Skyeboy scored another one!
Grand Prix was an absolute disaster after the 8th obstacle. Skye went into a curved tunnel, and then came back out the same entrance. Havent seen that before in competition. So we continued from there, but after a few more ooops's and then finally his skipping the chute, I told the judge we were done and we walked off.
We then ran Steeplechase, and we had a decent run and got the Q and advanced to round 2 for the next day.
Finally, we ran Standard, and almost got the Q except for my causing Skye to jump the AFrame contact and bypass the darn chute again. My fault though, one for me.
I was hoping to salvage this trial and have a successful day on Sunday, and it was moderately so.
Sunday we did Standard, Jumpers, Pairs relay and Steeplechase round 2.
Standard was almost a nice Q again, but not quite - Skye actually fell off the dogwalk when he was almost at the top of the up ramp. He's never fallen off one before - but he went right back up on it and wasnt shaken or hurt. Jumpers was next and we ran it well, but one bar down. I probably FC'd too close to the jump and caused it.
I ran Pairs next and my partner and I managed a Q - we both were clean. Finally, Round 2 of Steeplechase came. We ran 3rd out of 5 dogs. A couple of the dogs had off courses, and we managed to get 2nd place - Yea! My first time getting cash for playing agility!
So at least the weekend ended on a positive note. Looking at other positives, every one of our dogwalk contacts was good, and I have been letting Skye run through them. He strided nicely down into the yellow every time. We only missed the 1 AFrame contact that I caused by crossing too close in front of him. Weaves were good this weekend too, though somewhat slower than usual. We dropped more bars than I like to see though.
3 comments:
Yay, congrats on the cash. I'm sorry I missed it (you know how I am about Steeplechase).
I wanted to go to this trial (went to the one last November) but I did not like the idea of driving to Kansas in February.
Sounds like you had a lot of fun and some good learning experiences.
Congrats on the Steeplechase placement!
Yea, we got lucky that the weather was so nice. Always a crapshoot going any distance this time of year. We hit rain on the way back - no snow. The only other Colorado people there this time were Norm & Shar.
It was my first time at this facility - though Katrina has been there a number of times. Its a pretty nice place, and I loved that you are allowed to run your dogs offleash in the big fields outside.
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