Agility weekend!

A couple of weekends ago we got to play some agility!

We got up super early on Saturday morning and drove to Huntsville, AL, about three hours away.

Mum entered me in Snooker and Gamblers, and Gracie in Jumpers, Standard and Snooker.

The location in Huntsville was a super hard packed horse arena inside, just a bit to hard for me (felt like running on concrete).

Mum had an OK Snooker plan for me, not the best as it had to end up kind of long. And I wasn't moving my speediest, so we got a Q, but no SQ for me. In Gamblers I was running kind of slow again, but when it came to Gamble time, I kicked into high gear and had a beautiful run of the Gamble; jump way out to the frame, then in to the tunnel entrance that was placed under the frame, then way out to a jump. I was going over the last jump just as the buzzer went off. So for the thousandth time, I was about .10 sec over time on that. So close!!!

Gracie's jumpers run was happening just as my Snooker run was going on. Anyone that knows USDAA, knows that Snooker always take precedence. So Mum walked Gracie's jumpers, then she had to quickly go and walk my Snooker. I was five dogs in with one jump height change, so Mum had to go and get me ASAP.

Just as we were standing and waiting to run in about two dogs, they started calling for Gracie to run. But Mum couldn't go since the two dogs in front of us E'd on the first couple of obstacles of Snooker, so we had to go run!

After my Snooker, Mum ran to get Gracie, ran to her ring and they were already building the next course. Grrrr....even though Mum had told them she would have a conflict. the ring crew and starters judge insisted that Mum had plenty of time to run Gracie. Well, heck no!!! She didn't. Mum wasn't very happy, so she protested to the trial chair and the trial chair agreed with us. So we ended up with a free run voucher for their next trial.

Next up for Gracie was a standard run. If you know Gracie, you know she's had trouble with aluminium teeters. But they had a wooden one there. Guess what? Gracie did the most awesome standard run, even did the teeter, went ahead of Mum two jumps and downed on the table like a pro, did her weaves on the first try. They were at the 15th of 16 obstacles and guess what, Gracie couldn't control herself and took off to zoom a little. Mum got her back and they took the tire (last obstacle), but ended up taking too long to get Gracie back, so were over time.

But I have to tell ya it was awesome, and a first for Gracie to run almost an entire course, focused, fast and accurate. Good Girlie!!! She was sooo good we wanted to check out Sunset Beach Real Estate and see if they had a rental we could celebrate in!

Her last run was Gamblers, and it was a nice run, she got the first two jumps of a four jump Gamble, but missed the third one and took the fourth. This was one of Gracie's first Gamblers runs, so Mum was happy with it!

We drove home and even got home by 3 PM, pretty cool!

So, the next day we ventured to an outdoor (on grass) trial closer to us. It was fun, but I was only entered in Snooker. After the day before being sore, Mum massaged me that night, and gave me a Traumeel pill the morning of the second day and guess what? I was raring to go on that Snooker run.

So raring to go that Mum wasn't prepared. I took off like a bat out of you know where and barreled into the tunnel, oops that wasn't Mum's plan and was an out of order sequence to get any points for it, so Mum and I didn't get a Q.

Gracie ran Jumpers, Standard and Snooker, I think. Her standard had an aluminium teeter, so no Q for her. Her jumpers run was weird and slow, so no Q's. Gracie's last run was PII Snooker, and guess what? She Q'd in Snooker again! Dang she's gonna be in PIII Snooker before she gets out of PI anything else, BOL!!!

The good side of that is Mum will like the less conflicts on Snooker at least! Pretty fun weekend!

We are attending a USDAA match this coming Saturday, three runs each of us. The club needed dogs so they can be approved to hold USDAA trials so we were happy to use it as a nice practice. Hope they get approved, would be great to have another USDAA trial close by early next year!