DOCNA Trial

A great weekend all around-fun trial, great judge (Ann McQuillen, same as we had at DOCNA Champs), nice fast fun courses with some good challenges, all the dogs did great and had fun as well.

Strum did awesome for his second trial. He was well behaved, no lunging or barking fits, was good in his crate except for barking when I'd leave him behind, especially when I left to run another dog. He only ran in Traditional Gamblers, 2 rounds of Jumpers and the Strategic Time Gamble which I'm still getting the hang of. His jumpers runs are on the video, both were nice but with little glitches that cost us a Q but wow, I thought he did a nice job for his second trial. The first run fell victim to some poor handling on my part and the second run shoulda been but he got distracted by something outside the ring, maybe the next dog stepping in the ring to the line, and pulled off a jump for just long enough to cause a run-by then a back jump. His jumping at the end of that second run was awful, jumping WAY too early and I'm sure it's because he spotted the next dog stepping to the line. You can see his ears and tail go up for the last 2-3 jumps. We'll have to work on those distractions for sure and some jumping exercises. I've been focusing so much on contacts and weaves that I've been neglecting the jumping.

I knew his Traditional Gamblers run would be a no Q since the A-frame was in the gamble so I didn't worry about timing it to hit the gamble and picked a course to work on weaves, teeter and some handling. Again, he did a nice job, only got 2/4 of his weaves (popped out once and missed an entry I think), had a nice teeter, was listening for the most part but seemed a little distracted at some points. It went by so quickly, I can barely remember what happened. He did a send to the tunnel for the gamble then I called him to me and we bypassed the frame on our way out of the ring.

He saved the best run for last with the Strategic Time Gamble. I picked a course with a million tunnels and I'm not sure why I thought sending him through all those particle accelerators was a good plan but somehow I managed to keep up without having to break out the defibrillator. He hit all his weaves, beautiful teeters, so fast, 9 zillion points, at one point I said to the judge 'will the whistle ever blow?' because he finished all the stuff I had planned and I had to keep adding more so I wouldn't finish too early. You have a 30 second opening then a 15 second closing and you have to leave the ring in a certain window of time, 2.5 seconds I think? We got out in time so he got his first DOCNA Q. Even though we had the most points we finished quite low in the rankings (6th or 7th I think) because what's most important is how close you finish to 45 seconds, then points count next. Or something, I don't quite understand the scoring. The winners were all 44:xx and we were 43:xx because I ran out of obstacles too soon. I didn't care though, what a gorgeous run and lots of people telling us how amazing afterward, even people I didn't know.

This was a welcome change from all the zillions of people, including the judge, telling me how much fun Cody was having during his Traditional Gamblers run. Uh, yeah, not so much fun for me. Probably the less said the better. He redeemed himself with 2 nice standard runs though, both Q's. I've got the second one on the video, could end up being his last run in a trial. Yeah, I know, lots of big loopy turns but I was pleased with him anyway. I thought he looked good for 10 1/2 years old but still I think maybe it's time. He looked so slow compared to how he used to run and I worry about him.

Lola had a blast in her runs on Sunday. The courses were perfect for her and she had a chance to stretch out those long legs and RUN. She ended up with Q's in Strategic Time Gamble and one of her Standard runs and missed a Q in the second Standard run with a missed A-frame contact but otherwise such a nice run and she looked so happy. Love it when my girl is kicking up her heels and barking at me with joy, couldn't ask for anything more.