The Weekend Report - Timing is Everything!

Well, my title, Timing is Everything played into both my Jumpers and my Standard run yesterday.

First up was Excellent B Jumpers. It was a middle of the road course for difficulty and Jimmy whipped through cleanly. Yea! As I am putting his leash back on, the judge walks over and tells me the electronic timer failed for my run. This does not affect my Q any, but it means I have no time with which to earn MACH points. When this happens they offer you two choices, take the full standard course time (47 seconds in this case) and get no points, or, you get to re-run the course just for time. And the best part, when you re-run for time, you do not need to worry aboout keeping the jump bars up! How cool is that! Just go full out to try for your best time. You must complete the mapped course but your Q sticks no matter what! Who would pass up that opportunity?! So at the end of all the 12s, I got to run again. I cheered Jim on through the weaves, something I would never risk in a regular run, and hauled as fast as I could everywhere. We finished in 37.19 seconds, earning 9 more MACH points and a respectable third place!

Next was the new Time 2 Beat class. It was a slightly tricky course, starting with a jump, jump, AFrame....off to the right of the AFrame by about 6 or 7 feet was a tunnel. I put Jimmy in a stay, lead out past the first jump, released him and clearly indicated he was going to the AFrame. The naughty little tunnel-sucker zoomed BEHIND me (very bad!) to take the off-course tunnel! The brat! He came flying back to me, and promptly got snagged and given the walk of shame out of the ring. There was no way he was going to get to play with such disrespectful behavior!

Very soon after T2B came Excellent B Standard and of course a Double-Q was on the line. It was another middle of the road course, not horrible but a couple of concerning spots. Now we have been having an incredibly dry, hot summer, but Saturday decided to give us off/on showers, some quite heavy. When the rain came down hard, it made ALOT of noise on the metal roof of the sportsplex. Just as I was queuing up for my run, the rain started once again. It made Jimmy a bit nervous. By the time it was our turn, and Jimmy was going to the start line, the sky cracked open and poured! Poor Jim just wanted to leave the ring and hide. Unfortunately, the rules of the game don't allow you to wait out the rain, so we had to try. I lead out and released him, and he did his best to concentrate. When we got to the table, he got on just fine (good boy!), and I nearly lost his stay to him wanting to run to the judge for comfort. He was giving her his cutest little, ears-back, tail-wagging best, and was barely holding his stay in his desire to run to her. But he stayed the count. Whew! Next was the biggest jump, the triple. As we head there, unbelievably, it rained even harder, and it scared Jim enough he knocked the bar. So, there went the Double-Q, but I could hardly get annoyed with him, as he was giving his absolute best in what for him was a very scary situation. He just wanted out of that ring! He even finished up fine after the bar, getting the correct end of a very tough tunnel, sticking his dogwalk contact just fine. Just as we finished up and grabbed the leash, huge peals of thunder boomed out. Poor Jimmy, what a miserable experience he had! But he still had the wherewithal to lick his peanut butter reward :-) And within just a few minutes of leaving the ring, the rain ended. Sigh.

So, as I said, timing was everything. Fun in my first run, a disaster in my last. C'est La Vie!

This will be the last weekend report for a while. I am not signed up for any more agility trials until the October/November period. After such a long break, I am going to be jonesing for a trial, Jimmy, too!

Tracking Jimmy's MACH progress:
Excellent B JWW legs: 13 (out of 10 needed for his MXJ) Now he's working on his MXJ2!
Excellent B STD legs: 2 (out of 10 needed for his MX) But at least we are now in B class!
Double Q's: 2 (out of 20 double-Q's needed for a MACH)
MACH Points: 205 (out of 750 speed points needed for a MACH)