Did Tika Think This Was CPE?

SUMMARY: Tika had a good weekend. Boost is a work in progress. Still.

Wow--Tika Qed in 8 of 9 classes at the USDAA trial this weekend, only one bar in Jumpers on Saturday standing between us and a "perfect weekend". This is her highest USDAA Qing percentage for a weekend ever, in all 68 USDAAs in which she's fully competed. Can't explain it; a couple of excellent dog/handler teams commented that this was one of their worst USDAA weekends ever.

She did go 7 of 9 once in 2004, when she was still mostly in Starters. And she's gone 6 of 8 three times, in August 2004 (still in Advanced), August 2006, and April 2007.

Tika brought home ribbons as follows (Saturday against 15 other dogs, Sunday against 9 others):

• Sat Standard: Q/3rd (only 3 Qed)
• Sat Grand Prix: Q/4th (only 4 Qed)
• Sat Pairs: Q/1st (of 20 Open pairs)
• Sat Steeplechase: Q/5th (only 5 Qed--actually no one ever gives ribbons for Steeplechase, just checks. Am I supposed to go out and buy my own ribbon? Sheesh.)
• Sat Gamblers: Q/2nd (of 2 dogs w/highest points)
• Sat Jumpers: --
• Sun Jumpers: Q/4th (only 4 Qed)
• Sun Snooker: Q (6th of 6 dogs who got 51 pts)
• Sun Standard: Q/2nd (only 2 Qed)
• AND I put her name into the raffle and she won a free day's entry at a future trial! This was just her weekend.

Boost had 3 runs that were almost beautiful--Saturday's Standard, Saturday's Jumpers, and today's Standard--a generally successful Gamblers (Q/4th of 30 dogs) although still greatly flawed, and a whole lot of demonstrations of how much work we still need to do.

Oh, yeah, they did retape the tire that started Boost on her running-under-the-tire jag, but none-the-less she ran under it again in Gamblers, turning a 1st-place run into a 4th place. (Shown here at much lower than her jump height, in case you wondered how she could run under it...)

The trip home provided some interesting photo ops. When I talk about Boost crashing and burning on course, it's never as bad as this poor guy:

Out in the middle of miles of fields in the Central Valley, this guy was just cruising along parallel to the freeway.

This is what we look like while sitting at a complete standstill in traffic on the way home after a long weekend because of a big accident. Even Tika wants to know what's going on. (I've got my cell-phone ear phone on in case someone were to call me about my Mom. They didn't, but I had called them before leaving Turlock and she was home and doing OK.)


And here's my view from the stoplight on the exit ramp--almost home!