Weekend trial

Now you know I had to buy this picture.  When you go three years with your dog not getting on the table, you really enjoy every minute of this.

I went to an indoor trial on Friday and Saturday. I drove up early Friday. I went early so I wouldnt hit morning traffic.  So I worked the first class and it was freezing in there. Its always cold and I had those cloths on pictured above but I was still freezing.   Shivering!   The next day I was ready and would a thermal shirt underneath a sweatshirt. It wasnt as cold and now I was sweating. LOL,  that figures.

Here was the standard course.  Miley did great and Qed. She took 3rd place. Whoohoo!! Sorry I dont have any video. The usual people who are at trials werent here.   Then it was Java's turn.  I knew this was harder for her because of the running a-frame into the weaves. The judge had pulled the weaves back closer to the aframe because people complained about the being to close to the ring gating.  So  Java missed her weave entry but the rest of the run was beautiful. Her running dogwalk couldnt have been nicer.   Even the judge said, "beautiful run" when I finished.  Yay me!!  Someone did get it on video but he told me it didnt know if he would be able to figure out how to get it off his camera.  So I dont know if I will get it but it doesnt matter.  It felt great!

Next up was JWW.  I messed up both of these runs.  Miley, I did an off arm cue to keep her out of the first tunnel entrance. I think she thought I was giving her an opposite tunnel entrance cue and went to the tunnel entrance. She didnt go in and stopped but then came to the back side of the jump and I had to bring her around. So we got a refusal. But she didnt stress. This was huge!!  Especially after that UKI trial. 

 

Java, I dont know what the heck happened. She broker her start line so I had to run it with all rears. Which to my surprise worked   until after the weave poles.  I tried to FC between 13-14 and she didnt read it at all and went way off course. (pink maker Java).  Not a good way to end our day. 

I decided to drive the 2 hours home since I was done at 1pm.  My legs were killing me. I wasnt aggressive with my medication and I was in so much pain on the way home I almost pulled off the road. But really what was that going to do.   So I just pushed on, it finally  started to get better so I could think about other things than pain. The next day I did a much better job managing my medication so that didnt happen again. 

 

Day 2.

I had already decided when I found out they were running a CERF clinic at this trial to get Miley's eyes check. Not for breeding but just for my own state of mind. I just felt like something wasnt right.  I got the feeling my vet saw something in her eyes but wasnt sure and didnt want to tell me.  Her squinting has been better but I still felt like something was wrong. I had her eyes check at age 2 and they were ok.  (This was a big trial with agility, confirmation and obedience at the same time. So there were health clinic going on)  When I went to look at pictures that were taken there were multiple pictures of Miley taking off way to early. Im not really sure how she kept up all the bars she did.

 

 

Here is Miley taking the triple. She took off early and  she is trying hard not to hit the bars by keeping tucked.

 

 In contrast, here is Java taking the same jump.

 

 

First up today was standard. Java was first

 

Lots of off course possibilities on this course.   Probably the beginning was the toughest and the end of the dogwalk if you have a running DW.   Java I did a lateral send and then front crossed between 3-4. Well I supported number 2  for two long, instead of trusting my dog, so I was way late and cued that number 10 tunnel. Ugh!!  She missed the weave entry, my fault. Then, ugh, I started cuing the turn off the dogwalk way early.  And I thought I needed to layer the tunnel to get that 17 jump. LOL, nope, she turned and again took the number 10 tunnel. LOl Oh well.

I did a better job with Miley. I front crossed between 2-3. Nice run,   except for a dropped bar.




There was a little bit of a wait between Java and Miley's JWW run. Java was the 51 st dog to run. So I asked my husband to go take Miley and get the CERF check done.   I ran Java. Nice run but I got stuck in my front cross for just a second but I think Java thought I stopped and pulled out of the weaves.  (I should have said "go on" but I didnt think if it until it was to late).



Java was near the end of the 16 inch dogs and Miley was the 6 th dog in on the 12. I called my husband and told her to bring her back. He said there were still a bunch of dogs in front of her in line at the CERF clinic.  So he brings here back and tells me that her eyes are dilated for the eye check. Crap, I forgot they did that. He said they just did it and it will take a little while to work.  I took her to the practice jump and she seemed ok. I figured if she dropped the first few bars I would pull her.  But she did great. Except for one dropped bar. I heard her click it and waited. Then as she hits the weaves, I heard the bar drop. Crap.  But nice run.



After the run my husband took her back to the CERF clinic. I got there just at they were coming out of the room. The  opthamologist said Miley has scar tissue on but corneas, left more than right. That she has inflammation in her left eye. She needs to be seen by an opthamologist and she could have an auto immune diease.   She said they could give her eye drops and it would help. So hopefully I can get her into someone this week and see what is going on.   I hope its controllable and she wont go blind.   No great news at the end of the day but its not like I didnt suspect something was going on.

Cool picture of Java!

Why?

Why cant I walk a course and handle it correctly.  Ive been trying to listen and read different things about walking courses and following what people say and I still dont see things. Ugh!!!

I went to a trial this week. I was able to leave work a couple of hours early and head up to NC for the b-match before the trial.  I got there at 5pm.  There were a lot of dogs entered. Two rings running, one for big dogs and one for little dogs.  I think in the little dog ring there were 150 dogs entered. Wow!!    Anyway I got to run twice.  I put Java over the teeter twice in both runs. She had no problems getting on. We did a total of 6 dog walks and she only missed once. Whoohoo!! I think I left there sometime between 7 pm and 8pm. So not to bad.  I was staying at the worst hotel ever.  My friend my the reservations.  She told me the name of the hotel and I usually wouldnt stay there but she said it was ok and she had stayed there before. Ugh, it was horrible.  My room smelled like smoke even though it was non-smoking.  There was a small amount of grass out back, near the dumper with the cats all over it. The grass really needed to be cut. The weeds were above Java's head.  And I drove pass the entrance 3 times because it just looked like a dirt parking lot for trucks. The hotel rents out the parking lot to trucks to spend the night.  I thought maybe I was being silly about staying there but another lady who stayed there because of my friends recommendation, said it was the worst hotel she has ever stayed at. So at least it wasnt just me.

So I got to the trial site at 6:30am.  And stayed until 7pm becuase I didnt want to go back to the  hotel. I finished my last run at 4pm.  So I stayed and helped in the ring and then watched the little dogs run.  When I finally went back to my hotel, this truck was block the entrance into the hotel. It was the only way it. The truck had fallen into a big hole.

I thought maybe I could get around the truck, there are more trucks parked to the left of the picture that you cant see.  Be I figured with my luck I would get stuck in the mud and have to call a tow truck to pull me out.  So I just waited. I took about 30 minutes for them to get the guy out.

Here are my runs from Thursday. I was so excited that Java got on the teeter that I didnt even notice she left before it hit the ground and the judge called it.  Still a very nice run , even if Java was wide in a few spots.



Its funny in the jumper run, I felt like my front crosses were good until I watched the video. Ugh, they were still late. Then I was calling her over the jump before the tunnel but she was just locked on.

The next day was Jww first.  The begining of the course looked tough.  I walked it again and again.  Marking spots where to put my front cross and not go pass the plane of the jump so she didnt take the tunnel. Then making sure to move when she was commited to the jump.  The curved tunnel was the smallest tunnel I have ever seen on a course. The openings were so close together. So I felt like I had to drive into the entrance to get the right one. What I didnt see, even though I saw a couple of dogs struggle with the line, was the line coming out of the tunnel to the next two jumps. As soon as she came out of the tunnel, I knew I was screwed. Ack!!!  I tried to push anyway and made her drop the next two bars.  Why oh why can I not see those things before they happen? 




I felt ok about my runs when Im at the trial. But the next day, when Im home, I just start thinking about it to much and feel bad about my self. Silly, I know. I just want to do better but cant figure out how. Ugh!!! 
I didnt stay for my standard run. My jumpers run was over before 8am and my next run wasnt until 4pm. I just didnt want to wait 8 hours to run my dog, so I went home.
(sorry for spelling errors, spell check wont work today)

AKC trial

I went to a 4 day AKC trial in North Carolina. I only entered two days.  Friday was the first time in my agility career that I was entered in an AKC excellent standard course.  So my plan was to stay wide on the contacts but the contacts where all bunched together so it was impossible.

It probably doesnt looked bunched together from the photo but it felt it especially with the judge there. O'well it is what it is.  So our run was horrible.

We got one through 6 fine. Then for some weird reason she went around 7. Jumped her a frame contact, jumped the DW and even though I was front crossing between 11 and 12, she went straight off course thur the tire. Then she was all over the place taking jumps, jumped on and off the table came around and got on the table and laid down. It was a nice table and I tried to really reward it. She popped out of the weaves which is really weird for her. Then finished fine. So the beginning and the end were nice, the middle was a horrible mess.  Im not showing the video because its just to horrible to post for everyone to see. LOL There was a good thing. She didnt do that stressed out , running around the ring like your ass is on fire. So that was a big positive.

I think Miley just had to much energy. I didnt play ball with her outside before her run. She didnt get exercised on Wednesday or Thursday because of work, rain and Roxy being sick. (Roxy is better now). I walked her some around the fields and down by this pond. But her and Java didnt do there usual racing and burning off energy. I thought I would try to take some cute pictures out by this farm equipment that was laying out.

I didnt like how the picture turned out and was getting ready to move the dogs , when I looked down because something was stinging my ankle. OMG, my tennis shoe was covered in fire ants. Ive never seen so many fire ants. I move the dogs, thank goodness they didnt get bit, and pulled my shoes and socks off. I started killing the ants on me. Then they started biting my hands and arms. If I had an extra pair of tennis shoes with me, I would have left my shoes there. I finally did kill all the ants on me and my shoes and socks.  I really didnt get to may bites. Only maybe 10.  So much for picture taking.

Next up was Ex. Jumpers.

I really worried about that line from 10 -14. You had to be able to beat your dog down the line and push them to get #13. It turned out that wouldnt be my problem at all. LOL  I have no idea why Miley did this but after taking 5 she went straight ahead to nothing.( I think I pushed into her line to soon) I guess I didnt cue the jump. Then in the ending I was going to RC on the flat between 18 and 19. I was late and to far over. She thought we were going straight and we just miss crashing into each other. Ugh!!



On Saturday I didnt have to run until about 12noon. So I had plaenty of time to walk the dogs and brun off Miley's energy. I went to the park. It might be called Whitewater park, Not sure. Its was the US Olympic Whitewater training center. Very cool park. They have lots of trials and dogs are allowed. But the trials were closed due to to much rain. But I could still walk the dogs around the lakes. Great place for dog pictures too. Its where the top photo was taken.

Zip lines

White water rafting.

Ropes course.

Rock climbing.


And some kind of floating on a raft to  ride the rapids.

 
Im going to go walk the dogs. I post Saturdays stuff later.