We all made it through Sandy with little more than a bunch of pine needles dumped in our pool - we didn't even get all that much rain. We are feeling incredibly fortunate and our thoughts are with so many of our friends who are displaced or in the dark tonight.
The real aftermath here were three dogs who got little more than a few quick potty breaks yesterday - all three of my yellows were stir-crazy! We didn't have enough daylight for a proper hike or romp this afternoon - but forty-five minutes of (nearly continuous) galloping around the school yard seems to have unwound the effects of two days at a trial and one day sequestered by Hurricane Sandy...And now there is a bit of peace in the valley.
What an incredibly fun weekend for team Magica down in Greenwich, NY for Albany Obedience Club's fall agility trial. Teller went three-for-four with a missed weave entry today in Standard (in his defense, I may have squeaked when I drove too deeply into the tunnel after the a-frame).
Me and my boys: Teller, Kipling and Murphy.
Kipling was a super-star in his own right - he's coming together and running like a big boy, even with big distractions. Yesterday he pulled off his second OA leg and his first OAJ leg with first and second placements. His JWW run on Saturday was so smooth - he was so responsive and right where I asked him to be at every obstacle. Today's runs were equally grown-up, honest errors and responsive handling..I am so proud of how he is maturing both physically and in his work - he seems to genuinely love trialing and he's just so bloody fun to run!
Teller was very happy to end his two weekend
cheezeburger drought...even if he did have to share it.
Now that I'm running two dogs some weekends I'm struggling with a format that makes sense here, bear with me as I feel things out and tweak a bit here and there. This weekend we were back down in NH for the Mayflower Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club trial. A lot of words for a nice club - I love it when clubs truly appreciate their workers and their exhibitors. Yeah, I worked about 4 classes every day - but I can't count the number of times that club members said 'thank you'. I go to a trial expecting to work - but I appreciate when clubs take a bit of time and say thank you. Lunch tickets are nice (though now that I'm gluten-free lunch is often tricky from food vendors anyhow), raffle tickets are good - but really a thank-you means so much more.
Anyhow! A great weekend for Mr. Dependable Teller-Woo with a 3 for 4 weekend (Standard Q on Saturday and QQ on Sunday). With full disclosure, his NQ on Saturday was 100% me - I beat him down the first line to the tunnel and then front-crossed BEFORE the jump (instead of after), ended up beind a wing and when I told Woo to "Go" he looked at me as if to say "Ummmmm, Go where crazy lady?" Yeah, totally my bad, sorry for blowing your cheezeburger Teller.
Sunday was a new day - Teller had a HARD (you can hear it on the video) rub on the triple in JWW, but (thank you agility gods) the bar stayed up for a JWW Q. In standard I asked Teller to wait on the dogwalk and he very obediently waited for me 2" from the yellow. He walked down into the yellow - which cost us time, but I'm so so pleased that he's thinking (and stopping) on the dogwalk.
Kipling had his own super-star weekend though his Q rate was 25% in Open. I'm seeing him figure out the 'trialing' part of the game more and more. He's been in and out of agility trials his entire life, but he's always been the passenger. He's now coming into the buildings ready to play and very excited to play. He's got a glint in his eye and a bounce in his step - he's having fun! He's also worrying a bit when he's wrong - even when we (as a team) have a save, the near-miss just gets us out of sync enough that we have to take a moment and come back together. He's coming back beautifully - our goal is to start together and leave together - if we've got some wrong courses and refusals in the middle there, that's fine :-) Each run is coming more and more together!
Statistically this was not a good weekend for us. My reliable and dependable retrievers went 0 for 8 runs this weekend - BUT - Teller had four solid runs thwarted by (in roughly this order) a jammed shoulder in the weaves, a wrong course tunnel and a silly refusal..Kipling went to a new trial venue and while he was a bit out-classed by the course and the environment (OMG! The judge just put up his hand, should I check him out?) he got better and better with each run.
Let's be realistic and honest here - My goal for Teller is to finish MACH3 this fall; my goal for Kipling is to get him exposure, start and finish the course together and get him some super-positive mileage in-between. This is true for both dogs, but especially for the baby dog: its much more important for him to run the course happily than it is for him to run cleanly.
Positives:
Great contacts from Teller all weekend - pausing on his yellows and even getting a nice turn tunnel off a dogwalk (even though there was a chute straight ahead of him)!
Kippie also did a great job with his contacts - but also his weaves - nailing all four of his entries with nice snappy weaves.
We live to play another day - all around. I felt like I had a lot of dog from Teller this weekend - he was moving along and was quite responsive. Sunday's JWW (if not for the WC tunnel) would have been a 14 point JWW run for us - more than we're usually picking up in 20" JWW.
