SUMMARY: 3 out of 5 runs were Qs
Tika's Title Countdown
(number of legs needed after this weekend for:)
*Tournament Master: 1 DAM
*Tournament Bronze: 2 DAM
*Qualify for '06 nationals in all events: 1 DAM
*Gamblers Master: 1
*Jumpers Master: 2
*Snooker Master: 1 Snooker Super-Q
*Snooker Champion: 1 Snooker Super-Q
*(Pairs) Relay Champion: 1
*ADCH: 1 gamble, 2 jumpers, 1 Snooker Super-Q
Yes, we continued our inexorably slow march towards the ADCH with another Gamblers Q this weekend (placed 5th and they had ribbons only to 4th...this seems to be a trend...) and two other Qs (Pairs Relay and regular Snooker) that didn't do anything for us except put us closer to future possible I-Have-Lots-Of-Legs titles.
Today's Standard run was really nice, no bobbles worth noting except that I did a cross on the wrong side of a jump (where does the brain go?) and ended up not giving her a good line to the teeter, so she missed the up contact (same as last weekend, I believe), for our only fault. Kept all her bars up!
In Gamblers, she did very nicely; hmm, might have knocked the first bar in the opening, but that's just one point that we didn't earn.
In Snooker, dang, for some reason we were back in yesterday's "crap!" mode where we weren't communicating clearly, she spent too much of the run turning back to me and yapping about what a crappy job I was doing of telling her what to do, we missed the weave entry in the opening and had to go back for it, more yapping about one of the jumps, and THEN crap crap we were out of time as we were finishing obstacle #6 in the closing. We needed to get all the way through 7 to have a chance at the Super-Q and even then--well, there were 3 Super-Qs available for the 26" this time, and there were 3 dogs with 51 points. If Tika had made it through 7, she'd have been the 4th dog with 51 and then it would've been a matter of which 3 were faster, so we could still have missed it, who knows. But she kept all her bars up!
Today's Jumpers run felt slow to me, but I think that in this case a slightly calmer dog enabled us to have super-neat, tight turns on a very twisty course, and her time per yard was actually very good, and her overall time was good enough to have beaten the 1st-place 22" dog and to have come in 2nd in 26"...except that we (sighhhhh) knocked a bar.
In Pairs Relay, our partner was a not super speedy but fast-enough and steady, reliable dog. Tika knocked a bar, dang, but our partner was clean and smooth and, between us, we made up for the 5-point fault in having a good time and managed to Q (but not place).
I know just how you feel about the slow progress toward your ADCH. It took Jaime and I forever (it seemed). But you'll get there, just keep trying.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think Tika knocks bars? Is she knocking them with her front feet or her back feet? Are you saying/calling her name while she's over the bar? Are you moving into her line as she jumps? I used to (still do on occasion) cause a lot of bars to come down by saying "Jaime" as he was in the air. Now I wait until I see him land or I give him the command for the next obstacle as he lands off the last one.
Oh, and I always watch him land over the first jump so those rarely come down anymore.
Good luck!