Well, Here's What's What

SUMMARY: Really, I love my dogs, I do. All them blue merles.

So... Boost has earned exactly one Q in the last three USDAA trials. OK, she had a really stupendous Standard run today (except for one knocked bar on a tough front cross, and the dogwalk that she left wayyy before I told her to, so she had to lie down for a bit to think about it) that I completely enjoyed running.

But--otherwise-- Well, I had to scratch her from the two CPE trials because of her sore muscles. So, so far in 2009, she has earned exactly--EXACTLY--one ribbon. ON the up side, I don't need to clear much wall space for her ribbons...

But one Q out of 3 USDAA trails? Pfah!

Tika ran nicely but is back to knocking bars... one in Steeplechase (so she ended in 6th place and the pocket-change checks ended at 5th place), one in Jumpers, both runs otherwise very nice and smooth even at 26".

Both dogs missed their weave entry in the Grand Prix; I know it was my fault because (a) Tika almost never misses her weave entries and (b) both dogs missed it in exactly the same way. Sigh.

And other bobbles and flubs and mess-ups. Boost hardly stuck any contacts all weekend, despite me making her "down" after every one she left early. But I did use her last contact run of the day--a botched Grand Prix run--to take the 3rd contact of the run, which she did beautifully, as a big success, made a big cheering fuss and ran out of the ring directly to her toy instead of finishing the course. Maybe that'll make an impression...

Plus the usual looking-at-mom-instead-of-what-obstacle-to-do-next sorts of things, running past jumps, like that. How on earth have we ever managed to earn 18 masters legs?! Seems like that was a different life-- or universe--

Still, Tika did Q 4 out of 9 runs, not too far off her 50% USDAA average, so I guess it's good enough. And neither dog looked sore all weekend, so I'm VERY happy for that.

The main bright parts of today were:
* Standard, in which both dogs ran very well and Tika Qed, which means she now needs only 2 standard (and 4 jumpers) for her silver ADCH.
* Hanging with assorted friends at the score table and other random places.
* Winning a night at Quail Lodge in Carmel. (I put almost all of my raffle tickets into free trial entries, and tossed one into the VERY popular lodge drawing for "what-the-heck" reasons... Odd how it turned out... I figured that, if on the very slim odds that I won, I'd use it to sleep over in June, when SMART is holding their first USDAA trial there on their property, but a couple of people told me that I shouldn't waste a night in a 4-star hotel on an agility night, but come back when I can really enjoy it for a day. Hmm. )
* Big bonus: Also won this very soft and snuggly and completely useless blue merle aussie dollie! How cute is this?! (Another one-ticket what-the-heck effort.) It's so hard to find blue merle anythings. I think I'll name him MooMoo. (Flash back to my 3-year-old self...)


OK, too tired to want to scan course maps. To bed...