More Agility

SUMMARY: Because one weekend of USDAA in a row wasn't enough.

Aaaaaannnnnnd we're off to Turlock, where the weather is expected to be about 20 degrees (F) higher than normal for this time of year. This is why this trial was moved from mid-June to the beginning of May: To avoid the excessive Central Valley heat. Ha, how's THAT workin' for us?

Ah, well, it's supposed to be 10-15 degrees cooler on Sunday, thank goodness. Plus we're going to have a grand potluck ("Pre-Cinquo de Mayo") Saturday evening, and that's always fun.

Tika's signed up for only one run, on Saturday, and not sure whether I'll run her since it's going to be the middle of the day and she's not been doing as well in the heat in the last year or so. Never used to bother her, but, sigh, it sucks getting older.

Saturday is all the usual classes and tournaments, and then Sunday is all Team. Boost is teamed with two Kelpies, Drover and Betty, with the team name Dogs Gone Wild, which should be pretty apt for our group. All very fast dogs, some of whom have been known to be a little challenging to handle at times. But all good masters-level dogs (I'll include Boost in that, yes I will).

Boost and I did OK in class Thursday evening despite the warmth--only 2 other classmates showed up (others are either off at AKC World Team Tryouts or taking the night off) so we had a lot of chances to run. Boost's weave entries were SOOOOOOOO broken! Curse it all anyway!

And of course bars came down.

But she worked hard at all the drills even when I messed up and had to keep repeating and seemed to be enjoying herself. Tika got a couple of short runs and although she looked excited, wasn't all that fast--heat?

As usual I'm trying to get a steady reading on how I feel about the weekend, but the needle is hopping all over. Good friends will be there, the trial won't be too huge, I'm working score table again so will be able to do a lot of sitting in the shade. At some moments I'm excited about running Boost (when I think of our best portions of runs) alternating with really wishing I were spending the weekend going to movies (when I think of those single moments in each run when all the hope drains away...). Looking forward to team--I think--because in team knocked bars and refusals don't hurt you NEARLY as much as in regular classes.

Maybe I'm just overheated. Hope I can sleep easily tonight... it's later than I had planned, I'm not quite all packed; looks like I'm hoteling it again because I can't bear the thought of trying to set up MUTT MVR to sleep in, although I think it'll be a perfect weekend weatherwise for it.

Guess I ought to give the usual place a call and see whether they have a room. And throw some clothes into a bag and get to bed.

Keep cool, y'all!