a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Tika's USDAA Title Chase

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Tika's USDAA Title Chase

SUMMARY: Need Jumpers, Snooker Super-Q for ADCH. And Team for Tournament Bronze.

Our big Bay Team USDAA regional championship is this weekend in Sunnyvale. I'm not on the committee again this year; four rings is just too much for me to want to get my head around. I'll just be the usual busy worker bee.

We have many many runs this weekend. Tika has:
Sat -- 26 -- Masters Pairs (partner: Brenn. We had legs in Novice and Advanced together so hopefully now we'll have one in Masters, too.)
Sat -- 26 -- TEAM Gamblers
Sat -- 26 -- TEAM Jumpers
Sat -- 26 -- TEAM Snooker
Sat -- 26 -- TEAM Standard

Sun -- 26 -- Masters Jumpers
Sun -- 26 -- Masters Snooker
Sun -- 26 -- Grand Prix Rd 1
Sun -- 26 -- Steeplechase Round 1
Sun -- 26 -- TEAM 3-Dog Relay with Skeeter and Brenn ("Three's a Charm")

Mon -- 26 -- Masters Gamblers
Mon -- 26 -- Masters Jumpers
Mon -- 26 -- Masters Standard

If we're good enough, we'll also make it to Steeplechase Round 2 and Grand Prix Round 2.

Here's what's important for us this weekend:

  • Masters Jumpers and Masters Snooker Super-Q: Those would finish our ADCH! Which would make me very happy indeed!
  • Grand Prix Q in Round 2: Would FINALLY earn us a bye into the semifinals at Nationals. This would be a great stress-reliever for me. This is my second priority for the weekend.
  • Team: A Q would complete our Tournament Bronze title. Would be nice to just get it done, because Team is such a bothersome thing to get a Q in (5 runs in one trial in which all 3 of you have to earn decent scores, so it's expensive, too).
  • Steeplechase: A Q and moving to Round 2 is always nice for the possibility of earning some $.
  • If we were to win the GP or the Steeplechase, we'd earn a bye into the finals at the nationals. Odds of us doing this: Slim and none. Tika's a great dog but I don't think she can quite cover the ground as fast as the fastest dogs, plus that evil bar-knocking problem (or the up contact on the dogwalk) AND although maybe in our "local" trials I could hope that many of the top dogs might fault out and we might not, this is a regional championship and there are just way too many of the top dogs competing for them to all crap out. But I'll try anyway.

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