Sunday, January 3, 2010

2010 Arizona Wags for Wishes

The 2010 Arizona Wags for Wishes has come and gone. What a great time we had though. The show started on Thursday, New Year's Eve. We started at 6 p.m. and I was finished by 9:30 p.m., in time to get home, take a little nap and then wake up to bring the new year in. Kaylie Q'd in her Excellent Jumpers run and Conor Q'd and got 1st Place in his Open Jumpers run. Conor Q'd in his Open Standard run and Kaylie NQ'd in her Excellent Standard run. On Friday, New Year's Day, Kaylie didn't Q in either run, and Conor Q'd in his Open Jumpers run, finishing his Open Jumpers title. I decided to move him up to Excellent for the remainder of the trial. Saturday and Sunday were absolutely crazy, because I also had Conor in Rally. We're working on his RAE, so he had to do both an Excellent and an Advanced run. I was constantly running back and forth between the agility rings and the rally ring, trying to keep track of where things were. Conor ended up Q'ing in his Open Standard run with a 4th place on Saturday, but didn't Q in his Excellent Jumpers run. In Rally, he got 2nd place in Excellent B and 1st place in Advanced B, earning his 5th RAE leg. Kaylie didn't Q in anything on Saturday, although both her runs were awesome - just stupid small mistakes. Sunday started off with Excellent Standard. It was nice to have both dogs in the same class finally. Conor was the very first dog up in the Standard run. For his first time in Excellent, he didn't do too bad. He knocked a bar and ran past a jump and flew off the teeter (he was going so darned fast!), but overall I was pleased with the run. Kaylie's Standard run was absolutely gorgeous, and she finally got a Standard Q, and actually placed 4th!! Woooo hoooo!! I was most happy with that Q, because very rarely do we place in the Excellent B classes, especially not at large shows like this one. Unfortunately neither dog Q'd in their Excellent Jumpers runs. Bummer - no Double Q's for Kaylie this weekend. Conor's Rally runs were awesome on Sunday - he got 1st place in Excellent B with a score of 99 and 2nd place in Advanced B with a 99. That makes RAE leg #6. Just 4 more to go.
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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.