Thanks, Thanks, and More Thanks

SUMMARY: So many people who made this trial a success.

I posted this to my club, but want to spread the word a bit more.

And everyone else cooperated with each other. What a great group of people to work with and compete with!

Before I crawl off to sleep for a hundred years, I wanted to thank a whole lot of people who helped to make this weekend a success. I got lots of nice comments from people about how good the trial was, how nice we all are, and how bay team always does great trials.

I know this is long, but I wanted to say it all, so people can appreciate how much goes into making a trial work.

• First and foremost, my co-chair, Mary Marquez, in only her second time co-chairing, who easily did more than half the chairing work before and during the trial AND took on responsibility for judges' travel, judges' hospitality, and vendor management. I'd be a whole lot more tired if it weren't for her and her can-do attitude. 
  
• Also, Secretary Donna Sprouse who reminded us of many things that we'd have otherwise forgotten, did a lot of work that I had expected that we'd have to do without even being asked, AND took on the job of RV chief, and kept her sense of humor through the process of learning how bay team does things vs. NAF/VAST and the oddities of the site. And volunteered to arrange for us to borrow NAF's teeter for the weekend.
  
• Karey Krauter, at always, was the endless font of knowledge, experience, and money (via the bay team checking & charge accounts) who was indispensable in helping us make sure the right things happened, worked full time at the trial, drove to turlock before the trial to pick up a teeter for us, drove to san jose during the trial to pick up two tunnels for us, and probably a whole lot more that I'm not thinking of.
  
• Katrina Parkinson, as always, was a tireless worker, took on score table work as well as her usual half-equipment-manager, set-up and tear-down management, substitute course builder, Ubercart stocker beforehand, and I don't know what all, as well as volunteering her valuable skills as a Registered Vet Tech with no recompense.
  
• Paulette Czech let me talk her into being Volunteer Coordinator when all she really wanted to do was crew chief, which we turned into a new job of not only scheduling workers in advance, but also serving as mentor, assistant, advice-giver, and errand runner for our actual crew chiefs and for me and Mary as well, and she worked her legs off, kept a great attitude, and was much appreciated by all of us.
  
• Our crew chiefs Lloya French, Loni Cummings, Milli Conover, and Carol Bowers, our wonderful crew chiefs, who kept the rings staffed (a challenging job indeed with SO many groups to run and such small groups, too), filled in themselves where needed, offered advice when we needed to make scheduling decisions, and never said a cross word about anything. How about those white boards filling up so nicely on Sunday! (photos: Loni, Lloyda, Carol, and Milli--I wish I'd gotten better photos)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Our score table czars Diane Blackman and Katrina Parkinson kept the scribe sheets filled out and flowing to the computer through 7 different classes, 5 different levels, 6 different heights, and 3 different programs, AND trained new people on how to do it at the same time, without their brains or tempers ever exploding. (Diane photo here; Katrina above)
  
• Gwen Jones did a fabulous job as our grounds chief; I think she had a grin on her face every time I saw her. Before and during the trial, at every request from us, she went right to work to get it done, handled all the trash and restroom issues herself, and even made an extra trip midday to get more, er, restroom supplies when we ran low.
  
• Her significant other, Dustin Kerwin, served as chief course builder in one ring and apprentice equipment chief before and during the trial--the two of them are made for each other, as he also looked like he was the happiest man on earth even when working his buns off to get our rings built, equipment moved, and all the rest of it.
  
  
• Terri Prince, our other chief course builder, came in from New York at 2:30 in the morning Saturday morning and yet was still up and at 'em and working her own buns off to get course changes done quickly and cheerfully, and both she and Dustin helped in each other's rings to make things go even faster.
  
• Joni Grace let us talk her into being the food and worker hospitality person for her first time ever (I believe); she plunged right in, enlisted her son's/grandson's boy scout Troop 41 to do breakfasts and lunches as a fundraiser and to earn merit badges, made sure there were treats at the score tables, answered our endless questions about what was happening and what we thought we should do, and always kept a cheery demeanor.
  
• Mardee Jang ran an amazing raffle on a shoestring budget and, as always, made the raffle area look like a high-end tropical resort, a truly fun place to hang out, and she and husband Raymond set the whole thing up, managed it, made sure workers got their tickets in, AND also worked THEIR buns off doing other jobs all weekend, again without ever blinking an eyelid at the workload. Plus they let us borrow their tunnels at no charge.
  
• Paulette Czech and Lisa Maynard also were talked into splitting the Awards job, one day each, and as first timers, they plunged into it all, made sure the awards were counted before and after, and seemed to enjoy the process. (Lisa in pink)
  
• Nancy Ketrick decided she wanted to learn to do the CPE secretary computer software and spent most of the weekend at the computers helping Donna get things done.
  
• Maggie Guthrie, as PASA's representative, came out on friday and made extra trips to give us access to the dogwalk and teeter that we rented, and also brought the good news that PASA had decided not to charge us rent after all--thanks to you and PASA, what great friends!
  

And almost all of these people were also running dogs! What I remember most all weekend is how many smiles and grins I saw from all these people, over and over.

We had a nice turnout on full-time workers, too; these people gave up entire days of their weekend to work without running a dog and helped us to make the trial run beautifully efficiently--I don't have the full list and I apologize for not knowing all the names--so I'll have to list them all tomorrow when I get the list of names. Linda Knowles came down for half a day and worked so she could schmooze with other agility people and declined to take even a small certificate for it.

And THANK YOU to All the other club members and competitors who filled in the white board with their names and so set poles, ran leashes, ran scribe sheets, helped build courses, ran errands for me when I looked around and grabbed someone passing by, and all the rest.

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone--you were all superb this weekend!

Thank you all again for a great weekend.

CPE Day 2 of 2

SUMMARY: Wrap-up, Qs, no Qs, the usual.

OK, what's wrong with this picture?

From a trail chair perspective, I think the day went very well. Other than that little thing that we discovered that we had sent one judge the wrong schedule for Sunday. We were able to accommodate it easily (just one level out of order in one class), but, really, Doh!

Weather cooperated brilliantly for us for July. Thank you, weather deities! Sorry, all you sweltering people in the wrong parts of the continent!

Tika had 8 Qs under her belt (er, well, you know what I mean) when, in the 9th run (Wildcard), she knocked a bar in an odd place--even the judge said that was a very odd place for a dog to knock a bar, and that put an end to our Perfect Weekend ribbon.

So, in the last class of the day, Snooker, instead of playing it safe, I decided to go for a really aggressive three-7 opening (the closing was really simple and fast, but the opening was a true challenge no matter what you did). I couldn't come up with something I liked originally, and when I asked Brenn's/Quik's Human Mom if I could steal her course plan, she let me do so. We tried it with a total of 3 dogs (Tika, Boost, and Quik), and all three blew it approaching the #2 in the closing, all for different reasons. Ha! It was glory or disaster, else why play Snooker?

Earlier, Gamblers was a nontraditional gamble. Tika was a very good girl and racked up 82 points, 3 more than any other dog who ran the course, and had almost 10 seconds left during which we could've done more obstacles if I hadn't been playing it safe trying to get that perfect weekend. So Tika still reigns in the point-accrual class (other than the snooker today).

Boost knocked the bar in the bonus 20-point gamble and ended up with only 68, or she'd have been at 88! She is one fast girly, and that was a nice course to run her on. (And we still Qed because there were 2 gambles.) But she still took 1st of 7 in her height/level.

Remember yesterday how all I needed for Boost's Level 4 title was one dang Colors and I ran it perfectly with tika and then ran the wrong course with boost? You'll never guess what I did today--yep, amazingly dumb handler redux. How is it even possible to run a 9-obstacle course correctly and then, 4 dogs later, run it wrong? TWICE IN ONE WEEKEND? Sheesh.

Tika also Qed in Jumpers with a 2nd place (Archie again), and Q and 2nd in Colors (Brenn this time).

Boost also Qed in Wildcard (and won).

I am, as usual, exhausted. The arena is dusty--EVERYTHING is dust-infused. I took a lot of photos and my camera was always either being used or in its bag, and IT'S dusty. The bag is really really dusty. Maybe tomorrow everything comes out of the car and gets vacuumed or washed, or both.

Meanwhile--NO tucked-in shirts to be seen anywhere...no, wait! Is that tie-dyed one tucked in?!

CPE Day 1 of 2

SUMMARY: Good and bad.

I think the trial went very well. I started the general briefing just 5 minutes late and had the first dog on the line also 5 minutes late, and I think there's probably a relationship. The crew chiefs timed 8-minute walkthroughs so we didn't spend our entire day doing walkthroughs (and in truth, for most classes, most people didn't even use all 8 minutes). People were on the line and ready to go. We were done and had the next day's courses built by 4 or 4:30. Yeah! What a great team.

The down side from my trial chairperson's view was this: In my general briefing, I noted that the arena has very limited space and tht it was everyone's responsibility to watch their dogs carefully at all times to monitor possible interactions with other dogs. I said explicitly that even if your dog is good with other dogs, the other dogs might not be, so watch your dogs. One of the judges concluded the general briefing with pointing out how one of her dogs had been attacked (in the ring) by another dog whose owner wasn't paying attention, and that *all* owners needed to watch their dogs.

You know where I'm going with this. Two people were not watching their dogs (on leash) simultaneously and a bad thing happened, leaving no one very happy.

I can't repeat too often that these incidents could be avoided if *everyone* took responsibility for the location of their own dog's face at all times.

Anyway.

Tika was a very good girl and Qed 5 out of 5. Dare I hope for a Perfect Weekend? Either she or I usually end up doing *just one little thing* that prevents us from coming home with that special award. She earned the highest points in the entire trial in both Gamblers and Full House. But came in 2nd in the other three classes (Wildcard, Colors, Jumpers, with between 4 and 9 dogs per class) to the same young, fast border collie who also had some excellent successes at last weekend's USDAA trial. Ah, well, we'll have to keep hoping for more point-accrual classes where strategy and experience can win out over speed.

Boost had her moments. She won her Standard round despite running past one jump and having to go back for it (no refusals or runouts in CPE). Kept all her bars up. Oddly, stopped on the dogwalk downramp at the top of the yellow and stood there. Have never seen THAT behavior before. I wonder whether that's related to coming off the side of the teeter last weekend? It's always something, dangit!

She was 2nd in Gamblers. In the opening, she ran past a jump, didn't do "left Through" from the aframe into a tunnel, which is something that she ALWAYS does perfectly, but maybe it was because it was tucked into a corner, and then, as she approached the weaves, she turned back to me. I lined her up at my side, waited till she was looking at the weaves, told her to weave, and she again approached and turned back to me. At this point, the buzzer to go do our gamble sounded, but I was determined that she would do the weaves that were RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER and finally she did, and then did a perfect gamble, and I thought, jeez, that's 2 weekends in a row I've given up a doable gamble to make my point on some issue. But, lo!, she was so fast that she was actually a fraction of a second under time and Qed. But not nearly the points we should've had.

Her Jumpers was very nice. Yeah, she had a bar down, but in CPE that's still a Q at level 5. Her speed was fabulous, 5.9 yps.

In wildcard, I obviously didn't signal a slight pull to a teeter enough and she took the wrong obstacle. In Colors, dagnabbit, the only class in which she's still at Level 4, I ran it perfectly with Tika and then, 6 dogs later, ran it wrong with Boost. And Boost did everything I asked perfectly--no bars, no runouts or refusals or anything. DagNABBIT dumb handler.

Still, what a great bunch of people to spend a weekend with! All those hard workers and cheery faces and i hardly heard a cross word at all from anyone. The way agility should be!

CPE Trial This Weekend

SUMMARY: And I'm co-chair.

We are ready to go! Site is prepped, courses are built, all the committee folks have done what they need to do, we've all touched base with each other, I have my list of things to cover in the general briefing...

And the weather should be very nice for July! Not too hot, and it's under cover, and there was a coolish breeze all day today. Hoping it will stay like that all weekend.

I'm so lucky to have an awesome cast--er, committee--everyone pitching in, being creative, remaining smiling and even tempered even when things get a little confusing and it's hard to make decisions or things don't work exactly right.

Have I forgotten anything?

Oh, yeah, paying any attention to my dogs this week at all! They should be good and primed for some fast, fun runs this weekend. Five classes each day, so that's 20 runs for me for the weekend.

IF we've done our jobs right, my co-chair and I should have nothing to do all weekend except maybe chip in doing pole setting and the like. Love it!

More Agility, Coming Right Up!

SUMMARY: USDAA, then CPE.

Lots of agility in July: Three days the first weekend, one weekend off, then two more weekends--like a huge multicourse agility feast, the food keeps coming with barely time to clear one's palate.

USDAA

This weekend, another 2 days of USDAA (I didn't sign up for the bonus classes this evening). Down in Monterey (isn't there a song like that?), 80-minute drive from here. That's another early morning two days in a row.

Title Chase

Let's see--titles?

Boost STILL needs 3 super-Qs and 3 Jumpers Qs for her ADCH. Coming up on four years and counting since we moved into Masters, and only 2 Jumpers Qs and no Super-Qs to show for it. Just the same 5 Qs standing in our way FOR. EVER.

Tika? Two Snooker Qs for her performance silver (25 Qs--took 4.5 years to do it in Masters, now not even 2.5 years later she's almost there in Performance). Two Jumpers for her performance silver, too (5 years to do it in Masters, now not even 2 years and she's almost there again).

In the bigger Tika picture: 79 Qs until her lifetime platinum (500 Qs)! We might actually get there before she retires! It would be nice. But I'm guessing that will be another year, and if she's slowing down--well--I'll call it as we go.

Also, only 2 DAMs and 7 any additional tournaments to her Performance Tournament Platinum (50 Qs), which was the only thing she also went Platinum in Championship. We could actually do that this year, I think--or, wait, do we have two more DAMs this year? One at the regional--huh, not sure.

Attitude

As I was preparing for this weekend, i found that I wasn't actually looking forward to it. You've heard this all before. Maybe it's the early mornings, or the drive, or the whole weekend vanishing again. Or maybe it's because I'm just tired--haven't been sleeping well this week, not sure why--Maybe I have so much to do in general, maybe because yet another friend's dog died suddenly of hemangiosarcoma, and I'm scared all over again. Or maybe it's possibly tied to:

CPE

Charining next weekend's CPE. We went through a couple or 3 weeks where entries were so low we were afraid for our [financial] lives, but now we have more than we had expected (this is a very good thing). So we put off some things because we didn't know what our finances would look like, now it's rush rush rush to fill in the gaps. Thank Dog I have a co-chair who's doing a lot of stuff, too. I keep thinking I'm forgetting something REALLY IMPORTANT even though I've been over the checklists and have been trying to keep the whole committee involved.

I wasn't ever going to do this again--chaired a few CPE trials early on--except that I found that I really wanted one close to home, and we didn't have other people ready to do it yet.

I'll be very glad when it's done. And next year, maybe, hopefully, there'll be a crew happy enough to put it on and I can go back into chairperson retirement.

But I'm definitely looking forward to the CPE trial itself. Maybe it's because (a) it's only 20 minutes from my house and (b) Boost can still earn Qs and titles with faults. And both dogs usually come home with some nice ego-boosting (or ego-tikaing) wins as well.

Back to Attitude

I dunno, I like the agility when I'm there. Most of the time. But I've been so enjoying the weekends when I'm not doing agility. And then, like the other weekend, when Tika was so slow (for tika) on so many runs, is she getting "old" finally? At 10 and a half, she's entitled to do that, it's just that she's done so well for so long. And in USDAA, even in Performance, ya gotta be fast to do well (by my own warped definition of "well").

Anyway, this weekend: I'm doing it, I'll be there, I'll have a good time, visit with friends (when not at the score table, which is somewhat easier to do with the new computer scoring we've been doing with our own Karey-Made Software), play with my dogs, be outside in lovely weather. Really, sounds perfect, doesn't it?

Hope you all have a great weekend doing what you love.