The Weekend Report - Winning the raffle used up my luck!

Well, this weekend kicked off the fall season of agility trials. I certainly hope the way this trial went won't set the pace for the rest I have scheduled. Unfortunately, Jimmy and I went 0 for 4! Each run had at least one bobble, and that's all it takes to kill the Q!

This trial is one of the few outdoor trials I attend. And we have been having the rainiest weather lately. ( I don't know how all those Pacific North Westerners deal with it!) As this past week started out, the forecast looked promising for a sunny weekend. But by the Friday, it had changed to overcast with showers. Drat!
The whole ride down on Saturday morning, I drove through showers. Midway there, the sun struggled to come out, and I was treated to a lovely rainbow. I took it as a good omen.

Happily, the showers ended just as I was getting close to the trial site. We actually had a fairly pleasant and cool day on Saturday. Not lots of sun, but enough to warm it up a bit, and, best of all, no rain.

Now, being fresh from vacation and lots of rainy weather meant Jimmy had had very little practice. Actually in the span of 3 weeks he had attended just one class, so probably a total of 10 minutes of ring time, if that. And absolutely nothing in my yard which is a hideous mudpit.This translates into Jimmy being a bit wild. Our first run on Saturday was JWW. It was a very tight, and challenging course. Alas, a bar went down. You get one guess what went wrong in our Standard run an hour later........yep....Jimmy wouldn't get on the table on his first try. I think my handling getting to it wasn't great, and, of course, it is Jimmy's least favorite piece of equipment. Who wants to stop when you can have fun running? So Saturday was a washout even though it didn't rain!

Sunday started out cloudy and gray. Not as much rain on the drive down, but heavier clouds even at the trial site. Again, the first class of the day was JWW. It was another tight, tight course. (What's this judge run himself, chihuahuas?) Jimmy did a nice job, but alas he hit a bar early on. Here it is:

And then Standard....It started Tire, panel jump, to a dogwalk/tunnel discrimination, where Jimmy needed to go up the dogwalk. This is never good as Jimmy loves those tunnels! And there was a complicating detail...it had begun to pour down rain just a few dogs before my turn. Turn up your speakers and you'll hear it coming down! Well, of course, a tunnel looks dry and cozy, so Jimmy shot in despite my directions. He even tried to go through a second time! So, we were done from the get-go. Happily, he did do the table later on, and the off-course tunnel was our only mistake.

So, a weekend without any Q's. Sigh......I am going to blame it on this...Saturday, the club held a raffle to raise money for the club. One of the items being raffled was a very nice tote bag. I bought a few tickets and put them all toward winning the bag. And when I got back to the trial on Sunday, sure enough, I had won! Woohoo! But I would happily have traded that bag for just one Double-Q!

PS Special thanks to fellow Cardigan owner Chris T. for filming Sunday's runs.