Monday, July 29, 2013

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)

14 comments:

  1. WOW! I am so impressed by Jimmy! He did a great job all around! And look at you run!!

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  2. Jimmy is so good at that course! I'm really impressed with the weave poles and the jumps - even though he did take out one or two - he still did fantastic!

    Ahaha - glad you have a sense of humor about the water in your car. Yikes! But you are right - it's water and it'll dry. At least it didn't rain soda pop in there, right? ;)

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  3. Well done to Jimmy. Brave boy. Amazing what can be done with some good old tripe. Bless, nice to remember Dylan. Have a marvellous Monday.
    Best wishes Molly

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  4. As a convertible owner in Seattle, I know better than anyone that a sense of humor about wet car seats is necessary.
    Nice runs on some tricky courses both of you! I guess you do always hope that a super close to home trial will go better.
    And happy birthday to Dylan... you choked me up. I always take a moment on my first dog Tasha's birthday (and she was born wat feels like a million years ago in 1980.) Only non-dog people don't get it!

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  5. That jumpers run was splendid! He's a great agility dog and you are a fabulous handler! Great team!

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  6. What a darling Dylan was. I'm sure he was an amazing boy
    Urban hounds

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  7. Nice job to Jimmy! Dylan seemed like he was a very special boy!

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  8. The good news is that my husband and I are competing for bandwidth. So, although I couldn't see the entire two videos, I didn't see any mistakes either. Jimmy looked perfect!

    Hopefully the experience of facing his fears and not having awful things happen to him will help him in the future.

    Hope your car doesn't sprout anything after getting so wet. Maybe it's time to start a small mushroom farm.

    And you have me curious--45 minutes from Frederick in which direction? I grew up in Howard County (Sykesville, MD) about 45 minutes from Frederick.

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    Replies
    1. I am south of Frederick in Virginia, very close to Dulles Airport....

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    2. Oh yeah, I forgot. Highways expanded since my childhood get people across Maryland in record time. :)

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  9. Good job, Jimmy! (Going to have to get some tripe for Rita!)

    Dylan looks like such a cutie. It's so true that a little pup can really change your life!

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  10. How cool. That really looks like a lot of fun.

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  11. Finally getting around to all my blogging buddies. Sorry it's taken me so long to arrive. Love all the agility, we did it for fun before Gracie ended up with ACL issues :(
    Hope the car dries out quickly and so glad you take it in stride, no sense getting all worked up about it. Have a great tuseday.

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  12. Way to overcome, Jimmy! I actually said "NOOOO!" out loud as I watched that last bar fall... Ugh. But he looked good!
    I left my car windows open not too long ago too. Luckily I have leather seats, but it still gets that same musty smell!

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