FRAT USDAA Labor Day trial

Strum and I ventured over to Lakewood, a 48 minute drive, to try to finish up our Starters title last weekend.  I've been neglecting the titling classes partly to practice for Nationals and partly because Starters is so boring to me at this point.  As it is I only entered one day, 3 runs, hoping to pick up the remaining Standard and Jumpers legs needed for our AD.

The facility was a nice indoor soccer arena with rubbery, artificial turf.  I’ve never run on this stuff before and it was so nice, easily now my favorite surface to run on.  Strum looked so good on it, no bars down and steady on all his turns.  The only trouble was the place was so hot and stuffy.  It was in the mid-80’s outside and so much nicer outdoors, so would have preferred to be outside where at least you could maybe catch a breeze.  The lack of air circulation was even worse than the heat and poor Strummer started panting after his first run and never stopped the rest of the day.  I tried cooling him down in the wading pools, had him stand in front of the swamp coolers, walked  him down outside and nothing helped.  It’s the first time I’ve ever worried about him overheating.  Normally I'll cool him down with a hose after his run but there were no hoses hooked up, just the wading pools and splashing him with water didn't do much.  Probably should have made the effort to see if I could hook up the hose somewhere but everybody seemed to busy.

Strum had a great day, his only mistake a missed dogwalk contact but alas that meant no Starters title.  Such a nice run otherwise.  Nice Snooker and Jumpers runs too and Q's in both.  And somehow the stars and moon and whatnot aligned for us and the second ring was idle for all 3 of our runs.  The 2 rings were only 10' or so apart and no fencing or barrier of any kind between them.  I did see a dog in the Advanced ring get distracted by the dog in the other ring but the handler was able to get him back on track.  Still, it cost them some time.  I only entered the one day, 3 runs because I was concerned about the rings and it was a good decision.  

Next trial is USDAA Nationals.  Hopefully some cooler weather is on the way so we can get some practice in.

Trial Stats

Starters Snooker:  Q, 2nd place

Starters Jumpers:  Q, 1st place, 6.29 yps

Starters Standard:  No Q, 1st place (missed dogwalk contact)

Dogwalks:  0/1 (0%) 

A-frames:  4/4 (100%)

Weave entries:  1/1 (100%)   didn't pop out at all

Knocked bars:  None

Teeters:  1/1 (100%)

Table: 1/1 (100%) fast, perfect table

Off courses: None