Sunday, October 5, 2008

The 2nd DOCNA Championships Have Come to an End


It's so sad when all the fun has to end. What an incredible weekend we had though. Today started off with Trigility and the Sassy Trio. We all ran clean, I got to do the gamble portion, which we successfully completed, and our team ended up in 4th Place. Go Sassy Trio!! Next was the Finals Standard run. It was a VERY tricky course, with a lot of challenges. Every team in my class made mistakes, including us (we took a wrong jump), so there was no way I was able to even guess how everyone fared. Overall we had a great run, so it was just up to how the numbers were going to add up. Then we ran our Finals Jumpers run. I love Jumpers courses, and this one was a lot of fun. Lots of challenges, and I had to do some handling moves I'm not real comfortable doing. It was a great run, and I knew we ran it as well as we could have. I saw one team knock some bars, but I didn't watch anyone else, so again, it was an agonizing wait to see how it all ended up. Finally all the runs were done, scores were added up and it was time for the Finals ribbons to be handed out. I'm still in shock, and I don't think I'll ever come out of it. We ended up placing 3rd in the Standard Finals and 2nd in Jumpers Finals. The Jumpers is the one I'm most surprised about. We didn't place at all in either run on Friday or Saturday, but we were consistent enough to end up 2nd overall. What a great partner I have in Kaylie the Wonder Dog!! Looking forward to next year now, where hopefully I'll be competing with Conor too!
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1 comment:

Diamond Girl said...

YAY! AWESOME! WOO HOO! YIPPEE!

Personally, I'm not surprised at all that you and Kaylie did so well - I've come to expect that level of perfection from you! :)

October 6, 2008 at 8:06 AM

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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.