Agility a la Water

Nov 8-9 was the Bay Team's first CPE trial and I was its chairperson and it rained. Saturday wasn't bad, but Saturday evening and all night it poured, and the entire field splorched when you walked on it by Sunday morning.

It was an adventure. Fortunately everyone was cheerful and upbeat and cooperative and helpful and flexible and it went really well, all things considered. The Livermore Parks folks shut down the field because of growing muddy areas and we could do our Jumpers runs, but we were lucky to get most of it in, since a few days before they had said they weren't going to let us run in the rain at all.

For the first run of the weekend, Tika didn't stay at the start line and I took her off the course. We didn't have that problem the rest of the weekend, and she earned Qualifying scores 7 out of the 8 remaining runs, with 6 of those 1st places and one 2nd place, including her runs at Level 4 Standard (competing against dogs who've either worked their way up for Level 1 or have at least their MAD in USDAA or their NATCH in NADAC-- in other words, tough competition). It is such a thrill running her when things are working well.


Jake and I had our good moments and our bad. He Qed 6 out of 9, missing a gamble because he was so fast that he got too far ahead of me and I couldn't push him Out--it was a gamble where a "Right" command would have been extremely helpful. Missed a snooker run because he locked onto an obstacle in front of him and didn't respond to Jake Jake! Jake!! JAKE! **JAKE**!!!!! Never even turned his head. And I thought we had gotten the other one--but when I checked the scores, we were listed with a fault that was probably a missed contact. I was sure he had actually gotten them all on that run, but apparently the judge didn't think so. Sigh. Still, he was a good boy, taking a few firsts himself.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

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