Saturday, July 25, 2009

We Did It!!! We Did It!!!! We Did It!!!!!


I just found out that Conor made it into the Obedience Finals at the ASCA Nationals!!!! I got the e-mail and had to read it over, and over, and over, and over! I looked at every single letter to make sure I saw this: Vickie,
You and your dog did make it in. Congrats and see you in CO!
There is not a "not" in that first sentance, and there is a "Congrats" in the second sentance!!!!! YAY!!!!! I've been wanting this since I made the decision to accomplish this goal since January. All the practicing and praying paid off. This goes to show if you want something bad enough and go for it with all your heart, you can accomplish anything. Now I have to wait for the end of September. But at least this will be a fun wait - not the waiting for the unknown I've been doing since our last trial back in May. Colorado watch out - here we come!

2 comments:

Diamond Girl said...

All the practicing and praying paid off. This goes to show if you want something bad enough and go for it with all your heart, you can accomplish anything." Huh. Tell that to the Amazing Race people. ;-{

I think what it goes to show is that if Vickie wants something bad enough...Vickie gets it! CONGRATS!!

Vickie said...

You'll get on the Amazing Race some day, I just know it. You have to. It may be the Senior Citizen Amazing Race, but I know eventually you'll get it!

Kaylie - The True Wonder Dog

At our last DOCNA (Dogs on Course in North America) agility trial in Prescott, Kaylie did fantastic! We are trying to be the first team to earn the MEX (Merit of Excellence) who started in the Beginner level. We are getting VERY close. All the other teams that have earned the MEX were grandfathered in at higher levels. Kaylie was just starting her agility career when DOCNA was created, so we had no choice but to start at the beginning. And as it is, I believe there are under 20 teams that have even earned the MEX to this point.

Well, going into the trial at Prescott, we needed 2 Specialist Gamblers legs and 2 Specialist Standard legs. In DOCNA, there are two types of Gamblers runs -- Traditional and Strategic Timed Gamblers. Unfortunately, we have only earned 3 Traditional Gamblers legs -- one from the Beginner class, one from the Intern class and one from the Specialist class. All the other Gamblers legs have come from the Strategic Time Gamblers. So, I knew going in that the chance of getting that Traditional Gamblers leg on Saturday was slim. We walked into the ring, and I knew Kaylie was on fire and ready to go. The Gamblers class is usually the first class of the trial, and Kaylie is usually absolutely wild in the first run. Well, this was no different. She was incredibly fast, and I was not -- I kept getting in her way, and things just fell apart. At 30 seconds, the buzzer rang, which meant I had to get to the gamble portion of the course. I sent her over the jump to the tunnel -- she took the wrong end of the tunnel, then came right back to me over the wrong jump and that was the end of that. No MEX for us this weekend. BUT, she did qualify in the two Standard runs she needed, getting First place both times, and she got her Strategic Timed Gamblers leg on Sunday, earning a Second place. Wooo hooo Kaylie!!! Out of 10 runs over the weekend, we qualified in 8 of them, placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd in all but one run -- our Jumpers run on Sunday. I got lost on the course and just got confused. Luckily, Kaylie can read the numbers on the cones (that's the only explanation I can come up with) because she ran the right course despite my mess ups! Hence the name "Wonder Dog." So we still Q'd, but got 6th place. Still, not too bad!!

So, our next DOCNA trial will be in Pinetop the end of August. Hopefully we'll get our MEX there! Just one Gambler leg to go.