The Weekend Report - Making a Bit of Progress...and a Birthday Remembered....

This weekend was the Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club of the Potomac's agility trial held in Frederick, Md. This is the closest trial site to my house, only a 45 minute drive. Woohoo! I didn't even leave home until 8AM and the trial was running small dogs to tall!

When we last joined Jimmy's journey to his MACH, he was having fear issues due to the A/C roaring to life over his head and freaking him out! He's now taken that fear to yet another building. He planted his feet and did not want to enter! I didn't give him a choice however so in we went. I had left him in the car for as close to his run as possible and I brought his raw tripe that helped so much last time. While he was still quite apprehensive, he managed to be more interested in the tripe than worrying about the scary building. Standard was our first run of the day. We took off and had a good run going. We made it through the tricky parts and were in the home stretch......only to have Jimmy take out the very last jump. Sigh.

Here's that run......





Next, of course comes our Jumpers run...We are about three out from heading into the ring, when the skies overhead open up a loud deluge of heavy rain (see add'l note below :-) ) on the metal roof. This scares the crap out of Jimmy! Where a moment before he was only nervous, now he was petrified! I seriously considered scratching our run, but decided to give it a try. It was a very tricky course with a speedy dog and despite the rain noise, Jimmy ran well and qualified! What a good boy!

Here's that run.....




Of course we need those all important double-Q's but I'll take a single Q!

Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday. Jimmy was scared and didn't want to go in the building. He faced his fears by eating lots of tripe. I can say he was less apprehensive on Sunday as he was offering nose touches and paw shakes to get the tripe at a faster rate. He even managed a bossy bark or two when he wanted more tripe. In Standard, instead of taking out the last jump, he took out the very first jump. That was really my fault as I changed our start from the usual sit/stay to a stand/stay and he crashed the double jump. But, hey, if you are going to take out a jump, the first one is great because then you can try things you would otherwise not risk! I cheered Jimmy along throughout the rest of his run, egging him to go fast. The Jumpers run was fun with a couple of tricky spots. I almost lost Jimmy to an off-course jump, but managed to redirect him at the last second! So once again, a Q but no double-Q. We really need the big points we earn from qualifying in Standard because two successful Jumpers runs netted us just 25 points. That's not much of a step forward toward the 500 points we need for the AKC Nationals....

Here are the course maps for the two videos above.....

Click to enlarge

Now up above, I mentioned heavy rain. Well, the funny thing was, I had been crating out of my car for the morning, before it got too hot. All my windows were fully open! LOL! I'm third in line to run, my car is nowhere near the building, and the skies just cracked open! Even after my run was over, it was pouring so hard I didn't want to run that far, getting drenched in the process. I had my shade panels over the whole car/windows, so I was hoping that most of the rain would be deflected. At least the sunroof was closed! When it finally stops raining maybe a half hour later, I go check on my car.....And it is SOAKING wet! There are puddles on the floor, in all the window switches, even on the ledge in front of my speedometer! The dog beds are wet as is a towel and blanket. Fortunately, this isn't the kind of thing that pisses me off. It just made me laugh. It's only water and it will dry out....But when I drove to the trial Sunday morning, I got out, and even after sitting on a towel, my butt and back were quite damp!

And finally, before ending this post, I want to send birthday wishes across the Rainbow Bridge to my old friend Dylan, who was born on this day in 1986. Gone ten years but very definitely not forgotten!
You can click here  and here  to read about my buddy.

Amazing how a little dog can change the course of your life!

Tracking Jimmy's MACH progress:
Masters JWW legs: 35  Now he's working on his MXJ4!
Masters STD legs: 20 We earned our MX2 and are working on MX3 now.
Double Q's: 14 (out of 20 double-Q's needed for a MACH.... 70 Percent! The snowball is headed downhill!)
MACH Points: 846 (out of 750 speed points needed for a MACH...... We've got our points and then some!)

AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 6 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 285 (out of 500 needed)
Masters Legs: 18 (out of 20 needed)