Thursday at Scottsdale

SUMMARY: Boost crashes and burns, Tika feels good.

Mixed success on our runs today.

Boost Jumpers: Knocked the second bar, then popped out at the end of the weaves while I was trying to get ahead to manage a broad jump followed by a pull to the opposite tunnel end, and instead of grabbing her with intent, I just slowed and said "oops" or such, and she did come back but not before wrapping around the post of the broad jump, for an off course. Then one partner bit the next challenge, which was remembering whether you were on the first or second loop of the tunnel-tire-jump, and our third partner got the wrong end of that tunnel, so our team apparently agreed on Eing in Jumpers.

Boost Snooker: Did a nice lead-out pivot to the Aframe, stuck her contact, then knocked the second red. We managed to work our way slowly across the ring to the third red, then she popped her weaves in the last opening obstacle, giving us a whole 8 points in the opening. Then when I tried to send her out to the #2 tunnel in the closing, she tried to run between a closely space tunnel and Aframe--hard to do--then took the Aframe, and we were whistled off. At the moment, I don't remember what our partners did, even though I watched--I think the brain is a bit fried. It was a good design in that there was no obvious pattern that everyone attempted, and it was challenging in that there were plenty of equal-access off-course opportunities, which many dogs availed themselves of.

Tika Jumpers: Tika and Apache ran clean on a course that seemed to be eating up competitors, and our third (our draw partner) also did not E, so that was very promising.

Tika Snooker, one partner did great, one partner had a lot of opening points but only 2 closing points, and Tika (a) popped the Aframe for 0 points and then knocked the third red but she was already taking off for the next jump before I realized it, so we were whistled off with only 7 points. Curses!

Tika Steeplechase: Tika woke up today frisky and eager to go with no sign of soreness. We ran Jumpers first, and she looked lovely, so I didn't scratch her from Steeplechase quarterfinals. Unfortunately, she knocked the first bar--in the main ring, which has those huge wooden jumps with the heavy square wooden bars, and I think it probably stunned her a bit, because she also then knocked the second bar. The rest was lovely, but she'd have had to run clean to get even a slight chance of making it to the semifinals.

Photography, blog posting, articles for USDAA: I finally finished my article about Wednesday's course and found the person to hand it over to, but today, with dogs of different heights in different rings--and with the huge distances to walk from kennel to rings--I had no time for anything except the dogs and runs. Took a few photos between walkthroughs in the morning, but that was it.

Whoever was setting up USDAA's fiber optic network apparently somehow ended up with the wrong type of fiber, so yesterday and today they seem to have had no internet connection and no way to follow through on their hopes of broadcasting live all weekend. Hopefully it'll all be working soon.

I haven't even had a chance to check and see where Bay Teamers placed in anything from yesterday or today. So much for the on-the-spot reporter! Tomorrow I have only three runs all day, so it should be easier to do Stuff.

At last night's welcome dinner, a ton of Bay Teamers picked up their assorted bronze, silver, gold, and platinum lifetime award plaques, which was fun. Dinner was fine, companionship was good, and the comedian was Tim McGrew, whose jokes about being drunk (especially driving) didn't entertain me much, but he had some good lines here and there and when he finally got to some dog material at the end, he had the crowd roaring, so that worked out OK, too.

Tonight it was sushi with friends. Nice to have cool evening air, although it's still warm enough that I'm sitting outside without any kind of jacket. In the 90s both days so far, I dare say. And I'm having allergies like I haven't felt in years; don't know what's in the air. Ugh bleah. But I'm very happy that Tika's better today.

A sad note: Jonathan and Amy of Wishy The Writer lost one of their dogs, Mesa, on the trip here to some sort of seizure problem. I don't know the details. It's so painful to even think about. I don't know how they're managing to keep on going, but I think they're surrounded by friends here, which I hope helps.