We have had a few shots at this last Super Q - starting back in March of this year. I really didn't have high hopes since again we were dealing with really hot temperatures. It was well into the 90's this weekend, and Colorado Springs tied their alltime high temperature of 100 degrees today (as a side note, I am surprised it's never been over 100 in the Springs!) I had ordered a 'cool coat' for Rip from Clean Run last week, but it still hasn't arrived yet, and I also ordered a couple crate pads, one for Rip and one for Skye, that are supposed to help draw heat away from their bodies, but again those hadn't arrived yet either. So, I had to resort to wetting rip with the hose, something he is really not crazy about - ok he hates it and wants to know what he's done wrong... but I wanted him to have at least some motivation, and it worked! I did not get normal speed, but enough to get us through the course.
As the map shows below, the course was 3 or 4 reds, so of course we had to try for 4 reds. I couldn't come up with a good plan that would include multiple 7's and still let us finish the closing, so I decided on a plan of 5 5 6 7. I wanted to stay away from the 6 point weaves as much as I could, since weave speed is Rip's weakness, ESPECIALLY in the heat.
We ran the course pretty efficiently and finished just under time, with about a second to spare. When it was all said and done, we scored 54 points, and a few other dogs scored 53 points, putting us in 1st place!
The DAPPR club provides an ADCH bar and a really nice ribbon. They provide a personalized version of the ribbon, with date, dog names and title if you are willing to wait a couple weeks, so we used the one they gave for photo opportunities, and gave it back to await the custom version.
Happy Rip and Greg, with the judge Carol Kramer Smorch.
Now without looking further below, study this course and see what plan you would be willing to try... then look to see what I came up with.
Here's how I decided to do it, starting with the Red color, to Yellow, to Blue, to Aqua, to the closing in Purple.
3 comments:
First place in the 22" class -- way to get that SuperQ in style. :o) Congratulations!
Great run. The best I could come up with for our skill set would be 7,6,5,4. We are still not very strong (ie: can't do it....) at passing obstacles without taking them, so that opening move of yours wouldn't work for us! lol
Yay, congrats to you and Rip! Nice course too, pretty flowy for Snooker. I think I can see the steam rising off his back in the heat.
Super cool-congrats! Love the ribbon and bar.
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