A Hot Trial!

I competed in my third AKC agility trial on Friday and Saturday of this week. The thing I remember most about it all was IT WAS HOT!!!! For the first time mom entered us in two days - usually we just run on one day. But we wanted to try back to back days. Maybe summertime is not really the best time to try that.

The first day started out very hot. The first runs began at 10:00. We got there around 10:15 and did our JWW run around 11:00. It went very well and we Q'ed with a 2nd place and I got my NAJ title!!

Then we went outside and sat in the shade and had some lunch and waited and waited. One problem is that you are waiting for such an undeterminable amount of time. It's not like you can just go and chill somewhere and say, "I'll be back for my second run at 3:00." You have no real idea of when your second run might be so you have to keep going in and checking. It gets very tiring. I was really good about just lying down and resting some. I am quite relaxed in the building - mom took me to lots of trials there before I ever started trialing myself. So I am comfortable in that atmosphere. But it was still exhausting.

Any way, finally around 3:30 it was my turn for my STD run. The course started chute, dogwalk! It was not a good way to start for me - I couldn't get any momentum going. I even got a refusal at the tire when I stopped to sniff. But after that, things picked up and we finished the course. I got another Q and 2nd place and that was it! I got my NA title! So no more novice for me!

On Saturday we got up and had to be at the trial around 9:00. Mom moved us up to Open and we ran our first Open JWW course. It was a good and flowing course and I ran the fastest I ever have at a trial. Mom was even able to do a rear cross with me since I was moving fast enough! I got my first Open JWW Q and even placed 1st!

Right then and there, mom should've taken me home. That was even the plan she had from the night before. Go and try the JWW run while it is still a little cooler in the building and then go home and skip the STD run. We actually did go home for a quick lunch. But mom looked at the Open STD course map and the course started with a couple jumps and looked like a fairly easy course. And we had done so well in the morning. So she took me back to the trial. When we got there, they were running 8" EX so we thought it wouldn't take long to get to Open. Wrong. We still waited over an hour and it got hotter and hotter. Then it was our turn. I didn't even feel like jumping the first jump. I might have gotten a refusal on it - I'm not sure. When we got to the weaves (#8) I walked out after the third pole. Went back and tried again and finished them. Then I stopped on the up plank of the dogwalk (#9) and sniffed something. Got going again and then the chute (#13) - I went in and didn't come out and time ran out! So we got whistled off the course. Mom had to back me out of the barrel and she picked me up and off we went. Needless to say, we are not sharing video of the awful event - we deleted it already. It was just too hot. That was our very first NQ. We're pretty disappointed about it - mom is mad at herself for not just taking me home after the morning run. Guess we're not ready for two days of trialing - especially in the summer!

Ok, now even though we had mostly awesome results from this weekend, mom is worried about me. She is thinking that the messed up Open STD run will make me even less confident in trials and she is really worried about the fact that she had to pick me up from the chute of all things - just when we thought we had been making progress with the chute. She is afraid I thought she was mad at me - but she wasn't mad at all. I still got chicken for going out there and trying - I really don't think she should worry. In my opinion, she worries too much!

The next local AKC trial is in August. We'll have to really think about it - we just might wait until September to try again!

As a little side note - Linda Mecklenburg was running at our trial this weekend. We saw several of her runs and they were a thing of beauty! She is so smooth and quiet out there. She was even running in our classes with her dog Awesome - so sometimes she ran right before me - talk about a tough act to follow. For instance, in the Novice STD run on Friday, my time was around 62 seconds and her time was 32!!! She was running 12" preferred so at least we weren't competing against her (thank goodness)!

So the trial had it's ups and it's downs but mom is so proud of me! We've come a long way but we still have lots more to learn. After taking a break today, it's back to practicing!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky