2009 DOCNA Championships

The DOCNA Agility Championships were this weekend. They began on Thursday with a warm up trial, and then the actual Championships began on Friday. These were VERY LONG days, beginning with getting up 5 a.m. and then finishing up at the trial around 7 p.m., getting dinner and getting back to the hotel after 8 p.m. The pups and I are exhausted! But we had such a great time. Here's how it all panned out:

Thursday - Warm Up Trial
Kaylie - 1st Place in Standard
Conor - 1st Place in Jumpers

Conor definitely lived up to his "dog on crack" title in his Standard run. It was probably one of our worst runs ever!!! He was just nuts. And Kaylie took a wrong jump on her Jumpers run, but otherwise it was a very nice run.

Friday - Day 1 of the Championships
Kaylie:
Standard: I think she placed 9th
Jumpers: 6th Place
Traditional Gamblers: Can't remember where she placed, but she did get the gamble - YAY!
Snakes & Ladders: Can't remember where she placed.

Conor:
Standard: 4th Place
Jumpers: 1st Place
Traditional Gamblers: Can't remember where he placed.
Snakes & Ladders: Can't remember where he placed.

Saturday - Day 2 of the Championships
Kaylie:
Standard: 7th Place
Jumpers: 6th Place
Trigility: Not sure where we placed. Kaylie had to do the gamble portion, and she did get it!
North American Challenge: I think she placed 7th.

Conor:
Standard: 3rd Place
Jumpers: 2nd Place
Trigility: 2nd Place
North American Challenge: 1st Place - Western Region

Saturday they announced who made it to the Finals for Standard and Jumpers. I knew it was going to be close with Kaylie in Jumpers, as she placed 6th in both of her runs, but the dogs that finished ahead of her were not the same both days. The way they figure out who will make Finals is they take your times for both days, add them together and then they take the top 25% of each class. There were 20 dogs in Kaylie's class, so 5 got to go to Finals. Since the top 5 in her class were inconsistent (meaning the top 5 from Friday were different from the top 5 from Saturday), and Kaylie stayed consistent right at #6, she was able to squeak in and was actually in 4th place. YAY!! She didn't make it into the Finals for Standard though. Conor made it to Finals for Jumpers, but also did not make it for Standard. He had a small mistake on Friday's run (he didn't jump through the tire jump - he ran under it). Oh well - I was VERY excited to have them both in the Jumpers Finals. Jumpers is my favorite class anyway.

I was also very, very excited that Conor placed 1st in the North American Challenge. In this class, there is a Regional winner (West coast and East coast), and then they combine all the results from the West coast and the East coast to come up with National winners for each class. Since we had finished so late Saturday, and the east coast people had already gone to bed, they couldn't announce the National winners - we had to wait until Sunday. Ugh!!! I so wanted to know how we fared against the East. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, but I should have known better - the minute my head hit the pillow, I was out. Guess it wasn't on my mind THAT much! LOL!

Sunday - Day 3 of the Championships
Kaylie:
Jumpers Finals - 3rd place. If we were going to place, I knew this was going to be the highest we could place, unless the other teams totall messed up. I didn't watch any other runs of the dogs in my class, so I didn't know how other teams did. Apparently though we actually finished 2nd place in this run. They don't give out ribbons for this run, but this time is added to the other two times from Friday & Saturday. It all worked out that we finished 3rd! Pretty darn cool for not even placing in the semi-finals. This happened to us last year too, but last year we were able to squeak through with a 2nd place. I just have to remember to not count myself out - I was so sure we weren't even going to make it - the competition was VERY tough!! Darn Border Collies! :)

Conor:
Jumpers Finals - 2nd place. I knew I was going to have to run clean to finish in 1st. We were doing fantastic until at one point I turned a second to fast and I pulled him off a jump, and then he went over the next jump before I could call him off. Oh well.

Then they finally announced the National winners for the North American Challenge. I couldn't believe it when I heard Conor's name announced as the 20-inch Competition Intern level winner!!!! I was so incredibly shocked. I knew he ran well, and we couldn't have done any better. And best of all, his entire class was just Border Collies -- that's right -- all Border Collies and he was the lone Aussie. Very, very, very cool!!!! I do have the Wonder Dogs!