UKI

    I dove down , on Wednesday, to Florida this year for the 2017 UKI nationals. It was moved to Jacksonville because Perry Ga place gave their spot to a horse show.   The venue was nice. It was pretty warm on Wednesday and Thursday, in the 80's.  It cooled down after that.  On the first day , when walking my dogs around, they got those sand spurs in their feet. Those things hurt! I thought, oh great this is going to be a problem.  But that was the only day they got them.  I did manage to some how step in some fire ants and didnt know it.  I thought I just had regular ant bites. All on my left foot and leg. But I now know they were fire ants. So all the skin between my toes is falling off. I hate those things!! How did I know know they were there is beyond me.
   Anyway, I got up really early and drove down. I got there at 11am. I set up my rv.  Then I went over and help a little with set up.  Mostly I worked on putting together the worker bags and signs.  This year they had practice rings set up. You could pay to use the practice rings. There was only 4 obstacles in the rings and you couldnt move them. You had one minute at a time. The money went to the world team.  I really liked this idea. I hope they keep it.  It allowed me to run Miley and let her think she was having fun too. And after my first run with Java, I went over to the practice ring and worked on stuff.
   They offered a practice type run, called Sweepstakes (winner takes all).  I had high hopes for this run. But Java broke her startline. I just didnt expect it. She had had rock solid startlines for months.  One time, I had lead out, something happened and the judge went to talk to the scribe. (this was at an AKC trial). And she stayed all while this was going on.  So again, when she broke, I just didnt know what to do.  And then I just never got it back together.  I felt so sad after this run.

 After this run, then the regular runs started.  For some reasons I didnt enter Masters Heat, because I already had my bye. But I could have used the practice runs. Ugh. That was a big mistake.

  My first run was National Championship Round 1.

I really felt like we could do this.  LOL, but we didnt. It just fell apart. I just kept pulling her off of everything. Every time I thought she was committed and I would go, she came with me. It was horrible.




Next was Biathlon Jumping.

I dont even remember running this course. LOL. Even after watching the video, I still dont remember it. Scary, huh? (Just a note, you can get a refusal and still be in the game, its just a time penalty. Unless you get 3 faults, then its an E)




My next run was Power and Speed. It should have been no problem. It was one of the easiest courses of the weekend. We E'd. (The theme of the week for us)

There is 2 parts to this course. You have to be perfect in the first half, to be allowed to run the second half. Java didnt stop on DW and then didnt make the weave pole entry. We we E'd and cant do the second half. Sad.

And that was then end of our first day. It was hard not to feel terrible about how things went. So many silly mistakes. But you have to let it got so that you are ready for the next day.

Friday I only had 2 runs.  And our first run was Snooker. Ack!!!

It was hard to walk your snooker run because everyone all crowed around the same area.  I was having a hard time remembering my plan. So I used my phone to plan my path before I walked.

This snooker you had to take a red jump, then a colored and after the colored you had to always follow it with a tunnel. And he was calling refusals at the tunnels.  My plan was to do two 7's and the #6 weave poles, front cross after the weaves and put her in the tunnel, then start the close. For some reason, while waiting, I changed my mind and decided to pull her into the tunnel after the weaves.



Once again we freaking E'd.   Sad, sad , sad!!  I do not know what this ring footing was made of.  It had a little sand in it but had some ground up webbing stuff.  It seemed good in the morning but as the afternoon wore on, it became softer and softer and was hard to run it.  I dont know if watering it would have helped but Im going to ask?  I wasnt the only one who felt  this way.  It didnt seem to bother the dogs.

Now for one of my worse runs of the weekend.  There was not way in earth I was going to beat Java down the line of this next run.

First off, 3 straight tunnels, holy crap!!

So  I was ahead of my dog  at #2,  but I still  didnt get down there to cue#5 and she took the back side. I felt like I just couldnt run. And this course was huge, it took the whole ring. The only people I saw making it were dogs that kept checking in with their handler, slower dogs, or dogs that were stopping and jumping up on their handler. We you see 20 years olds not making it through the course , then .....

Now its Saturday. I only have 2 runs. Master Heat Series finals.
Jumpers didnt  look bad. I really felt confident we could do it.

I felt confident when we step to the line. Java had been staying at the startline after the first day.  We start, a little bobble at #4 tunnel but we are ok. Then coming down to 12-13-14 and  I cant remember which jumpers were front sides or back sides. Ack.  You walk both courses and then everyone runs. So many backsides. I just couldnt remember and we went off course.



Now the killer course. I knew I didnt have a prayer. This course measured 216 feet and they dont measure the dogs path in UKI, when they measure the course. They measure the shortest distance between the obstacles.

There is no way I can beat my dog down all these lines to get these backsides.  So my goal for the year is to get backsides completely on verbal.  So do I stay back and make sure she gets on the a-frame and not the tunnel but then not get the backside?  I figured she would take the a-frame on a verbal, NOT. ( this is a horrible run, I wasnt even sure I was going to post it).




Ok, now its Sunday. Last chance to make it into the finals. Beat every 16 inch dog int he challenger round.  The course was could and I really felt we could do it.

If I  had just turned my shoulders into her . Ugh. These little mistakes are what is killing us in AKC runs too. 

Oh well. In good news, I was home by 4:30pm. And I made it down and back on one tank of gas.