I did actually - had to take I25 south, then left on I40 in Albuquerque, to get to the fairgrounds for the SWAT USDAA agility trial this past weekend. (if you dont know the reference, you need to watch more bugs bunny!)
One of my goals this year was to get Rip out of Novice/Starters classes in both AKC and USDAA. We met that goal for AKC over the summer, but for USDAA, we still needed 1 more Standard Q - one that eluded us at the October trial in Fountain, so there was my motivation to drive 6 hrs.
I am really happy to say that the only bar that Rip dropped all weekend was the 1st bar in his second leg of our Pairs run. This is a huge accomplishment, especially considering we ran 10 runs over the 2 days.
So, not only did we manage to Q that Standard run on Saturday (2nd place of the 16 starters dogs), but then we managed to also Q Sunday's Standard run with a 3rd (Ms. Vega had an awesome 1st place run in that one)!! This means Rip has his 'AD' title and will be moving up to Advanced for the next show.
Also, by keeping up all the bars this weekend, we had a great Jumpers run with a Q.
The pairs run I mentioned was run with Kim & Quin as our teammates, since neither of us had a partner assigned. They usually only pair small dogs with big dogs as a last resort, but in our case it worked great - we had Fast Quin, and even with Rip's bar down, we still got 2nd place and a Q to finish Rip's pairs title - Masters Pairs, here we come!
We also ran a nice Advanced Snooker run, getting all the way through the closing for a Q & 1st.
No Master Gambler Q's for Rip this weekend, but he gave it a good try in both cases. We came close in Grand Prix and Steeplechase too, but no Qs.
For the Skye-boy, I found that they don't seem to grow the dogs very big in New Mexico. For nearly every class he ran in, he was the only 22" performance dog. There were maybe 2 or 3 classes where he ran against a huge Great Dane, but otherwise it was just us against the clock.
Skye ran very well with no offcourses, no missed contacts, no popped weaves and I think just 1 dropped bar in Gamblers and one in Grand Prix.
We ended up with 10 first places (hahaha) and 7 Q's. We did get another Snooker Super Q on Sunday - they combined all the performance dogs together and gave out just 1. We also were the only dog who ran clean in round 2 of Perf. Steeplechase, to win me $5 !
With the 2 Q's Skye got in Snooker, we earned a new title - Bronze Accomplished Snooker Dog (or something like that). When the building was cool in the mornings, I had fast Skyeboy, but as it warmed up, I had the slower version, but still he did a great job.
I saw that the club plans on hosting this trial again next year at the same location on the same weekend - I would go again as it was a well run trial, plenty of parking up close, plenty of bleacher seating, good food vendor, etc. The indoor surface was good - no dust, and lots of room for the 2 rings.
I will try and post some video soon.
3 comments:
WOW!!! Congratulations Greg on a fabulous weekend. I didn't know about the Super Q or the Bronze Accomplished Snooker Dog title. Honestly every run I saw of yours and Skye's over the weekend was fabulous.
Rip was a very good boy too. Vega distraction was tough this weekend (especially when she barked in the other ring!). He had fabulous runs. His contacts were awesome all weekend too. Good job.
I'm so thrilled that we were beat in Pairs by Rip and Quin. I think that's so cool.
I agree that the trial was run very well and I'm planning on going next year too. I even liked the hotel... close, cheap and the dog area was nice.
I was wondering what happened to all the Performance dogs. In Arizona, the Performance classes are often larger than the Championship ones. In California, Performance is slightly smaller. I cannot recall a SWAT trial with so few Performance dogs.
Skye usually competes against 6 or 7 other 22" performance dogs in our local trials here, and lots more for some trials. Not sure where they all were in New Mexico - very strange.
Post a Comment