What a Weekend

I haven't been to an agility trial since Nationals which was early November. I've barely been working my dogs - well, not to the extent that I had prior to Nats. I went to an indoor trial held in a dirt floor horse barn with minimal heat. Dressed in layers - Under Armour is the best stuff EVER!

Saturday was fun but no great runs to report except that Gusto got one of his required Snooker qualifying legs towards his ADCH - Agility Dog Champion. He ran well on Saturday but we had some bobbles. I didn't feel like I could run well in the loose dirt and I didn't wear my knee brace so by the end of the day, my IT Band was sore. I ran the little cute deaf dog, Ivy, in Performance and had alot of fun.

Here is a video that Rosanne took with her new camcorder of his Snooker run from Saturday - I look like a dork running in the dirt but you will get the idea:

Hey Rosanne - thanks for taping us.

Got up early on Sunday to pick up a friend, student and junior handler (she is 16 in a few days). Katie came along on Sunday to run Ivy. I forgot to include the fact that the temps were 28 - 35 degrees most of the time this weekend. It warmed up a bit on Sunday but was still damp, cold and smelly in the barn.

On Sunday, I was down to 3 legs for his title. I had a chance to get them all on Sunday. Sadly, we were a train wreck in Snooker but he ran Standard and Jumpers beautifully. It was the most amazing feeling. We were in synch and I could run because I had my super duper stabilizing knee brace on all day. He won all 3 of the classes that he qualified in but the best one by far was our Jumpers run - smoked it at a blistering 25 and some odd seconds. The next fastest dog was 2 seconds behind our time - this is a dog that wins stuff at Nationals so I felt really good about that time.

The best part was that I stayed relaxed for almost every run (except the second Snooker run). I enjoyed watching Katie run Ivy. Ivy is the most adorable dog ever and she loves to do agility so it is great that Katie can run her for me. People can't believe that she can run agility so well considering her loss of hearing. Katie took 2nd place in Performance 16 Jumpers too - nice way to end the weekend for all of us.