Sunday at Day on the Green

SUMMARY: USDAA trial second day.

Yeah, indeed, it was no picnic dragging myself out of bed at 5 this morning. Dogs were eager to go again, though. The drive took 80  minutes. Just after the turnoff from Highway 1 onto Carmel Valley Road, there was a decoy dog show that wasn't ours.  Funny, two dog events so close together on the same weekend. (This is an AKC type conformance and obedience show, I believe.)

We wonder whether it fooled a lot of spectators who never made it further down to the road to our REAL show (which was hidden wayyyy back in the Quail Lodge grounds.)

...Boost admires the truly amazing turf, and the camera seems to want to make her a truly BLUE merle with nothing to go on but brilliant green, which it also got a little wrong...

Tika won Jumpers again (by a mere .02 seconds) for another 5 Top Ten points, putting us I'd say with 100% confidence in the Top Ten for Jumpers for 2010.

In Gamblers, she flew off the dogwalk, costing us 5 points, turned way wide twice when I was trying to call her in, and that's all it took so that, when her 2nd teeter was descending, the whistle blew and the judge didn't give us those 5 points, either. So instead of winning--not even in the placements. Although she got the gamble nicely, so did "everyone else" in her group.

In Snooker, well crap, *I* thought I was doing a tight wrap to a 7-point obstacle and *she* thought she was going straight ahead to a 4-point obstacle, and since she was in better communication with her feet than I was, the 4-pointer won, again keeping us out of the placements (although she got all the way through the course) because "everyone else" in her group got the full 51 total points.

But she did win Standard today, so, except for Jumpers, she reversed her well-done courses from yesterday.

In Steeplechase round 2, we all finished in exactly the same order we placed in the first round, so we came home with a 3rd place and $12.

Boost had a lovely Gamblers today, placing 6th out of 53 dogs in her class. Once again, no Q in Jumpers--one dang bar!--or Snooker--knocked the first dang red! How is it that I'm trying to get a Jumping and Snookering dog and instead seem to have a Standard and Gambling dog? (I know there are lots of people who'd trade me Jumpers or Super-Qs for Gamblers legs. Too bad it doesn't work like that.)

We actually brought home some titles:

• Boost's Gamblers Champion (10 Qs)
• Boost's Standard Champion (10 Qs)
• Tika's Performance Jumpers Champion (10 Qs)

To remind myself of how badly my new quest for Top Ten points has skewed my agility-success world view, I've been feeling like this weekend was decent but not great because Tika and I missed so many opportunities for Top Ten points, mostly with just one stupid thing here or there.  It wasn't until I got home this evening and entered it all into the database that I did a double-take and had to go back and check: Tika actually Qed 9 out of 10 runs this weekend! So, really, it was  a pretty good weekend.

While packing up at the end of the day, I found this little guy snugged up in a fold in Boost's crate, under the sheet covering her. Shows you how damp they must keep the lawns usually! (Today they had gotten so dry that dogs were face-planting left and right in the twisty Jumpers course, both of my dogs included.)  I had to wander a bit to find a place to put him where I hoped he'd be safe from all the packing-up activity. (Probably a Sierran Tree Frog, Pseudacris sierra, also called the Pacific Chorus Frog.)

The drive home took Two. And. A. Half. Hours! But, while sitting stationary on the road drumming my fingers, it gave me a chance to admire the endless artichoke fields...

...and the cleverly disguised cell phone tower (amazing, isn't it, how much their clever disguise makes it look exactly like a disguised cell phone tower?)...

...and the big red barn, whose flea markets and sales are often the cause of major backups coming home, but didn't seem to be anything going on there today.

And, once again, we're home, I'm tired, dogs are not, and it's now bedtime.