I will have to admit, I was very nervous about this weekend. Mainly for two reasons. One, I had entered Miller in team so I had five runs on friday, then three on saturday and two on sunday, and I had 0 q's for nationals going into this show. I have to admit, I don't do very well when I am behind. Usually by now we have been to at least 2 USDAA shows so I normally already have my team Q and one Q in either PNS or PSJ. I don't do really great when I am coming from behind and I am behind right now. We have had absolutely no chance to condition our dogs either due to a very harsh winter. We have not had class since probably October so I know Miller isn't in the best of shape, nor am I. I LOVE USDAA and would love to enter him in everything, but reality is setting in and I know he isn't a spring chicken anymore. Plus, Tony got laid off about the time I needed to enter this show and I had no extra money so could only entered a very limited amount. Anyway, top that with bad weather being predicted and I was a little nerve wracked!
I had decided to go down on thursday night as soon as I got done with work and boy am I glad I did. I was feeling kind of stupid as it didn't snow till friday morning, but I was so glad I was already in Lawrence. Not sure the snow fall totals but it was big and wet and seemed like alot! I am sure the roads were just slushy but it still would have scared the crap out of me! We had team day on Friday and I was nervous. There were alot of good Performance teams with five events to complete. We had gamblers class first and while I felt like we got alot of points, we really didn't. I think Miller got 40 points but most team got at least 50. The gamble was to get as many 1s and 3s as possible before the buzzer sounds. If you touched a five, you lost your gamble points and if the buzzer sounded before you were out, you lost all your gamble points. There was tunnel down by the end obstacle that most people were taking several times but it was under a dog walk and I could so see Miller going up the dog walk and negating any points we got. We ended up getting last place after round 1 but all teams were above the line at that point. Our next round was snooker and I was contemplating either trying to get four ones and at least two sevens or just going for three ones and trying to get as many closing points as I could. Miller ran great in gamblers but I was greedy and went for four 1s and two sevens but only made it to the 4 in the closing before the buzzer sounded. My teammate Buzz did really well so we moved up a couple of spots and were still above the line. Next event was standard, with a very tough standard course. For whatever reason, Miller popped the last pole, in fact did that about three times so ate up a ton of time but then ran the rest of the course clean. Again, my teammate pulled through and had a clean, fast run and we moved up again. Round 4 was jumpers and we both had very fast runs, but Miller knocked a bar barking at me. We moved up again as other teams had gotten Es in both standard and jumpers. Team Buzzing on Miller was in first place going into the relay. We were the only team that didn't have an E so the pressure was going on us. The first part of relay had a tough weave pole entry but otherwise was just jumps and not a lot of yardage. The second part had several tough discriminations but tons of yardage so we decided that the younger faster Buzz would handle that part better. I got done cleanly going through the first part but buzzy decided that the tunnel looked way better than the A-frame and we got an E! We dropped from 1st to 5th but still got the Q. I think Tammie and I were bummed as we had clawed our way to the top but that got us our team Q and that was all we needed!
I had reserved the room for two nights and again I was glad I did. It had snowed pretty much all day and even though the roads were just wet, it was almost 7 when we got done and I was tired and hungry! It was so nice to just go back to my room and have dinner and crash and not have to white knuckle it back to wamego. We had three runs for saturday, two of which were very important so I wanted to be rested for sure. Again, I had no Qs for PNS or PSJ so I needed both runs. I had also entered gamblers since it was the first class of the day just as a warm up. Well, the gamble had weaves in it, a far distance away so I was pretty sure he wouldn't get it. We racked up a nice amount of points in the opening and headed to the closing and miller refused the tunnel right before the weaves which negated the gamble but got the weaves! I was so elated because he has never weaved that far away from me! For whatever reason, the older he has gotten, the farther away he wants to work for me. Maybe I should go back to NADAC and try to get those chances legs I need for his NATCH!!!! Unfortunately, my plan for that being the warm up back fired because we didn't run PSJ or PNS till several hours later. I have been trying to do more warming up with him, mainly through walking alot before he runs and doing minimal warm up jumps. He stresses high so I want to minimize it and doing a ton of warm up jumps would drive him over the edge. So if you see us at a trial and we are just walking circles, we aren't crazy, we are just trying to warm up. Well, I am happy to report that we got both a Q in PNS but also PSJ! Our PNS run was safe but I decided to run all out in PSJ since there were several very fast dogs in our division so he had a really awesome time! I think we were second going into the finals and third in PNS.
I did drive home saturday after running since the weather was good and had already packed up since they were predicting snow on sunday. I figured if I was going to come back on sunday, I would just bring in my little red pop-up crate and just bring Miller and not Deuce. When I got home, I was just so tired and so worried about the weather that I decided not to go back and run finals on sunday. Partially because i was worried about the weather, but also about having so many runs with Miller. He seemed to be okay but I had been giving him Trameel all weekend just in case. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep at 9 pm and didn't wake up till 9 am. I don't regret not going back for sure. Miller got to rest, I got to do some house work and pay some bills and go shopping.
Now, observations for the weekend! I need to trust the old man! Runs where I just trusted him and let him just run his course, he did fine, runs where I micro managed him, he didn't. You would think I would know that after almost 5 years of running him! He seems to be very sensitive on the weaves right now. When I crowd him or stop or hold my breath, he pops every time. I also need to trust he will get his entries to the weaves. He knows his job and got a couple of tough entries this weekend no problem. I also need to go for it! He can do it and I have no clue why I am so conservative sometimes. I could have gotten all sevens in snooker but was so worried about whatever that I didn't go for it.
I am looking forward to going to the MAC trial in a few weeks as I always enjoy that trial whether we are successful or not and maybe going to Fort Worth for regionals. I am for sure going to Nationals now in KY so team Buzzing for Miller is set to go (if she will have me:). I just wish we had more USDAA in our area. I would so give up AKC for good if we had more USDAA! It is so much more fun and so much more challenging mentally. I LOVE the strategy games, especially snooker and gamblers!
On to another dog show this week. Was entered for four days but pulled back to two. Tony is entered too so finger's crossed for a double Q for team Tony and Harley!
No comments:
Post a Comment