Another USDAA Day One of Two

SUMMARY: Lots of news.

For a while for a year or so, I'd been giving Tika rimadyl before & during weekends, but she hadn't seemed to need it in so long--after last weekend, and with the toenail dragging thing, although mostly she's looked happy and active and healthy all weekend, I gave her one last night and one this morning. Not sure whether that's the operative event, but she ran really nicely today. Fast, happy, perky.

That didn't necessarily equate into Qs:

• Jumpers, because of the angle of a jump, she apparently misread my being behind her as a rear cross when in fact I was going straight, so a turn in the wrong direction and a refusal at a tunnel. Her time was still pretty nice despite that extra yardage, but no Q.
• Snooker, because of the angle of a jump, she apparently misread my being behind her as a rear cross when in fact I was going straight, so a turn in the wrong direction and I could see it coming in slow motion in my mind as she backjumped the jump, so a quick exit with only 8 points.
• Steeplechase, knocked one bar, not sure why (it wasn't a cross or anything odd), and her time would've Qed without the bar but we were 3 seconds over with the bar. Didn't help that two dogs scratched so we again had to be combined with the very-fast 16" crowd.
• Standard, went mostly nicely. Still a lonnnnnng down on the table despite practicing a whole lot of downs before our run. She was 10 full seconds behind the winning dog as a result, but everyone else crapped out and she was still under time, so our only Q for the day and a 2nd place.

Speaking of rimadyl, our dog-friend and often partner Chaps, whom I mentioned last week had decided to scratch the entire weekend because he was randomly gimpy, apparently ate an entire bottle of rimadyl and spent the night and most of today at the vet's with an IV. Fortunately they caught it in time and he went home this evening. Thank Dog! The very obedient dog who won't even take food from the floor without permission, somehow decided to take the bottle off the counter and help himself.

Some vets whom I know are very much against chewable dog drugs exactly because of this sort of thing. A blessing and a curse--i can just toss the rimadyl pill to Tika and she eats it, no cheese or monitoring required.

Boost's day started out nicely when our customized C-ATCH ribbon from February was delivered--and what a huge ribbon! But our agility  day was the usual mess.

• She once again killed me on Snooker by getting through a nice 4-red opening and most of the closing and then not coming in over a very easy serpentine at #7...again almost in slow motion I could see her shorten up her steps shorter shorter shorter trying to decide whether to take the juuuuummmmmppp...and no. I almost had to shoot myself later, though. I was gasping for breath from running and frustrated, so I walked to the finish line instead of running, despite people yelling "run to the finish line!" I figured, why bother, we had only 48 points and others were getting more than that. But until almost the very last of the 30-plus dogs ran, it looked like one or two of the 48s would actually get a super-Q but, because I'd walked off, we were the slowest by a second or so and wouldn't have gotten it. Thankfully, enough dogs got more than 48 to save me from having to kick myself repeatedly.  So--yet another Q but not a Super-Q.
• Steeplechase was a mess. But someone complimented us on a fantastic lead-out.
• Jumpers was a mess. A four-jump lead-out and she did that nicely, too. OK, so lead-outs are a strength at the moment.
• Gamblers opening was fine until she ran past a jump that she had to take for me to go on to the Aframe--three times! As a result, the whistle blew while we were on the wrong side of the field and I had to stop and think about how to get to the gamble from there. She actually did do the gamble, but not only were we over time, she knocked a bar as well.
• Standard, argh, I don't remember. Not a Q.
• Pairs, missed her weave entry, then I did a front cross to try to keep her out of the wrong side of a tunnel and she wrapped so far around me, or something odd, that she took the wrong side anyway, for an E.

Speaking of Boost not being able to get a Q--our classmate and Boost's full sister (but 4 years younger), TCam, today at the AKC try-outs won the first 26" position on the World Team for this year! Are you listening, Boost? Just take obstacles in front of you!

I still felt surprisingly chipper despite our Qing failures today--weather was great, surrounded by good friends and hard workers-- and we were done pretty early, so took a break to snap a few photos of wildflowers on the hillside next to the agility field.

Plus a gratuitous photo of Team Small Dog's Otterpop and Laura because that's the only photo I took of anyone else all day. Otterpop has an amazing "Bang!" drop and roll on the run. Plus loves her frisbee.