Strummer's Perfect Day at DOCNA

Strummer had a great day at FRAT's DOCNA trial today, getting 4/4 Q's, his first ever perfect day.  Well, sort of perfect anyway.  DOCNA doesn't ding you for refusals and you can have 12 faults and still get a Q in the North America Challenge so if your super fast Border Collie decides dogwalk contacts are for sissies you can still qualify for Championships.  And apparently you can tear past the finish jump on your way to the super fun water hose, get halfway there, come charging back into the ring and take the finish jump and still get a Q and 1st place if you're fast enough.

And somebody was fast enough.

On the one hand the courses were easy today.  On the other hand we've had 2 practices in the past 6 weeks since his July 4th trial and probably even less the 6 weeks before that.  And no trials since July 4th.  So I was extra happy with the day.  We're doing Team at USDAA next weekend and I entered one day of this trial so we could work the rust out of our gears so the easy courses were just the ticket.  We had some missed dogwalks, some refusals, a pop-out of the weave poles, an iffy teeter but no off courses, missed A-frames or knocked bars so I feel confident going into next week's trial.

We were done with our 4 runs by 2:00 p.m. and it never got horribly hot, low 80's with a nice stiff cooling breeze.  Can't complain about that in mid-August.  Seemed like there were a whole bunch of people there that I didn't know.  Don't know if they were newbies or folks who only do AKC who were branching out.  This was the case with 2 people sitting near me but not sure about the rest.  Kind of a strange atmosphere for me though.  Some people also having some not so very nice sportsmanship.  Thankfully I only heard about this and didn't hear or see it personally but still I think if you're getting bent out of shape about a placement at a small local DOCNA trial it's maybe time to take a little agility break.  Go enjoy the last few bits of summer left up on the mountains.  Or something.

I did get one run on video, Strum's North America Challenge run.  Despite the missed dogwalk this was  Q and qualifies us for DOCNA Champs in 2013 which will be in Golden again, about 40 minutes from my house.  Funny to think they haven't even had this year's Champs yet and we're already qualified for next year.  Not sure that I'll go but it's nice to know that I have the option and that I won't have to spend any more money on that expensive entry fee.

DOCNA AUG 2012 VER 2 from colliebrains on Vimeo.



Final Stats

Specialist Strategic Time Gamble Q - 2nd place

Specialist Standard Q - 3rd place

Specialist Jumpers Q - 1st place

Specialist North America Challenge Q - 3rd place (5 faults, missed dogwalk)

No titles that I'm aware of.

Dogwalks
2/4 (50%)

A-frames
4/4 (100%)

Teeters
4/4- (100%), though one was iffy

Weave pole entries
4/5 - (80%), one popout near the end of the poles

Bars down
None!

No off courses.

Several refusals.