The Weekend Report - Getting Nervous!

In my never-ending quest for those last points, of course this past weekend was spent at an agility trial. This weekend it was given by the Capital City Cocker Club at a horse farm in Fredericksburg, VA. We had lovely cool fall weather.

Saturday, we had three runs, Standard, Jumpers and then very late in the day, Time 2 Beat. Standard was up first. It was a nice flowing course without too many difficult challenges. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, Jimmy dropped the bar on just one jump. It was a jump just after coming down the Aframe so it could be Jimmy could not get his stride right soon enough. I blinded the bottom of the Aframe to switch sides, so it could be that threw him off. Either way, our high point run was toast.  The Jumpers run came a long an hour or so later. I heard a couple of bars get nicked by toenails, but nothing came down, thank goodness. So we had one Q and 10 points. And finally, as the daylight was waning, Time 2 Beat rolled around. My agility instructor was at this trial, and since the running order was tall dogs down to small, I got to watch her runs. Just for fun, I decided to run Jimmy with the same handling moves she used. T2B is just for fun and doesn't count toward my Nat'ls tally so getting a Q or no Q isn't a big deal. Now in my 12-inch class, there is a little Sheltie who if she runs clean in T2B, she wins it! No one ever beats her. Well, no, we didn't beat her, but, her time for the course came in at 33.03....Jimmy came in just .01 behind her at 33.04! I guess I should imitate my instructors moves more often! LOL!

Here's Saturday's Standard run:



Sunday was just a day of Standard and Jumpers. Again Standard was first. Again the course was nice, with good flow and seemed doable. We had a good thing going until once again, the jump after the Aframe, this time the tire jump, took us out. Jimmy either took off too soon or misjudged the height, and split the tire (it is magnetized, and breaks when hit hard enough for safety.) Sigh. Then, knowing I was disqualified, I didn't work hard enough to get the tunnel to the dogwalk turn, and that got a refusal. So again, the big point run was toast. Jumpers was a very nicely laid out course and I held out hope for at least another 10-pointer. Jimmy slipped in the loose dirt as he took off from the start line, messing up he stride, and taking out the very first bar. HUGE SIGH. I now had no worries so I cheered him through the rest of the course and had a beautiful and fast run. It's always JUST.ONE.JUMP. So it was a day without any points at all.

Here's Sunday's Standard run:



So here we are, still needing 27 points. It's still possible but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 8 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 473 (out of 500 needed....27 to go! We can do it! Verified w/ AKC on 09/19/2013)
Masters Legs: 30 (out of 20 needed)