Wednesday, March 16, 2011

UD Leg Number 2!!

That's right!!  Kaylie got her second UD leg this past weekend!  She did a fabulous job on each individual exercise, but unfortunately she sure had to do some sass talking during and in between the exercises - so much sass talking that we about didn't qualify.  Not sure why she feels the need to say all that she does during a trial - during practice she never barks.  Once we get that last leg, I'll have to decide if it's worth going on and seeing if I can get her qualified for the ASCA Finals next year.  I also showed Conor just for fun in Open, and he ended up getting High in Trial and High Scoring Aussie.  What a good little boy dog.  He also earned 2 more points towards his Championship this weekend too.  On Sunday we did agility at the DOCNA trial.  Not sure if it was me or them, but whatever it was - it wasn't our best agility day - Conor just qualified in Trigility and Kaylie just qualified in Trigility and Jumpers.  The Gamblers course had a distance discrimination challenge - and of course neither dog is so great at distance, so I didn't really expect to qualify in that anyway.  We've got a weekend to relax and regroup and get ready for our ASCA agility trial next weekend.  Can't wait!
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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.