Crazy weekend!

What a wild and crazy weekend!

We went to our USDAA agility trial - Gracie and I. When we got there it was about 35 degrees, kind of chilly!

I had four runs on Saturday and four runs on Sunday - Gracie had two runs each day.

My runs:

Saturday - Masters Jumpers, Advanced Gamblers, Advanced Standard
Sunday - Steeplechase, Masters Snooker, Masters Jumpers, Advanced Standard

Gracie's runs:

Saturday - Starters Gamblers, Starters Standard
Sunday - Starters Standard, Starters Jumpers

You all know that it was Gracie's very first trial. Poor girl; just before her first run it started snowing, and I mean snowing! She is still such a pup, and ran around some, but came back to Mom three times - twice to do her weaves perfectly and once to the tunnel, then on to the gamble which she almost completed.

She was much more focused during her standard run and only pulled away from Mom to check out the crowd a couple of times, didn't go very far and came right back. Once she got on the table, she absolutely didn't want to go down. So no Q's for her on the first day, but she is just starting to get used to trialing - she improved 200% from her first run to her second.

Me? Well I was on fire starting out on Saturday. Got my gamble - with a very difficult tunnel dog walk discrimination. Wow, Mom was really impressed. And I was really fast in my masters jumpers run and got a second place and Q!

Then the mud set in - not so bad for me, but not so good for Mom. She had trouble keeping up with me so I slowed down some to stay with her.

During my standard run Mom was running with me, put in a front cross and slipped in the mud!!! So I missed the tunnel/dog walk discrimination. Ahhh, the elusive standard Q.

Sunday the weather was much better, but the mud was so much worse. I did pretty well though. We got 4th in the Steeplecase, but I bailed the a-frame on our standard run when Mom got stuck in the mud. Oh...another elusive standard Q, ahhh!!! Got a snooker Q and fourth place, but then we ran jumpers - I was clean but 1.5 secs over time. Dang mud!

Poor Gracie didn't recognize the tire in her standard run - and it was the first obstacle, so they got eliminated. But then she was doing really, really well - totally focused on her jumpers run. And it was a tough jumpers run for a starters course, we thought. But then she came up to one of the wing jumps and stopped right in her tracks just before the jump. Hmmm....Mom said jump and she pushed both her paws on the wing and growled a little, then looked at Mom...Hmmmmm...Mom pulled her back and directed her again and she hit the wing again, the bar fell. Then she took the jump and off to the finish with a nice rest of the run.

Mom said she'd never seen a dog do that. Hmmm....very curious. Guess she just wanted to give that wing jump the what for!

Overall it was a miserable, fun, fast, slow, wild, tiring day. Mom worked a lot throughout the weekend to help with the trial, so we got to stay in the nice warm car. Lucky dogs!!!

Here's to our next trial next weekend - our first CPE!!!