Saturday USDAA Report

SUMMARY: Tika 60% Qs, Boost less than that.

Tika is really checking in with me, acting so uncertain on course, so many bobbles here and there. In standard, she veered off to the side of the table and turned back to me, for a refusal and NQ. In Jumpers, turned back a bit for a refusal, then I sent her to a jump and moved away and she pulled off the jump for an off course.

I didn't even enter her in Gamblers, no point in doing so, really.

She did Q in Steeplechase but there were a lot of uncomfortable places. She Qed in Snooker, thank goodness! that's one of four down!, but it wasn't pretty and we ran out of time before the 7 due to the various confusions and bobbles. And she had a pretty nice pairs relay run although she did try to turn back to me once.

Nothing like placements anywhere. I'll take the 3 Qs, but we still have 45 to go to her Platinum Lifetime. That seems so very far away these days.

Boost ran past jumps in Gamblers and I tried to get her to Down to keep her from bouncing around in front of me and she wouldn't even down. It was a mess several times in a row and of course she didn't even come close to doing the gamble, not tht we'd have had enough opening points.

Snooker, she knocked the first bar then kept running past jumps and at that point, pretty sure we weren't going to get a super-Q, so spent all our time trying to get her to come alongside me and look ahead rather than at me, so out of time long before we had enough points to even Q.

Steeplechase, had a bar and ran past a couple of jumps.

Standard, actually was a nice smooth run but had 2 bars down.

Jumpers--oh, not sure whether this hurts more than really messing up--was really lovely except for one jump that she ran past, even kept all her bars up.

Then had a spot-on-perfect 9 obstacles in her half of pairs relay and we Qed on that one.

Nice to end the day with a Qing run for Boost and Tika both.

Weather was very nice; a bit foggy in the morning but not too dense or wet. Cleared out to pretty sunshine before noon, shirtsleeve weather but a nice breeze and quite comfortable.

Both dogs looked tired at the end of the day; Boost looked more stiff than Tika did! (Which was not at all.) Well, huh, Tika was just 8 1/4 when I started moving her gradually into Performance. Jake didn't move into Perf until he was 11 1/4, about the age Tika is now. Boost could be getting close to maybe needing to go to performance and giving up on ever getting an ADCH. Her speed certainly isn't an issue. But she just doesn't bounce out of her crate any more.

So very many things to think about, all the time.