Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Weekend results

Tika
Saturday	Standard	An extremely challenging course for large, fast dogs. 19 of 39 E'd on this course and only 4 26" dogs Qed. We hung in there--not even bars down--until 6 obstacles from the end, when I pulled her too hard and ended up with offcourse into tunnel under Aframe.
	Jumpers	Smooth and fast, but 2 bars down. Still, not bad--17 of 38 dogs E'ed on this course.
	Team Standard	Looked great and then we knocked the last bar. Still, good enough for 18 of 45.
	Team Gamblers	r5c3
	Steeplechase Rd 1	Was late calling her to one sharp turn and she knocked the bar. Dropped us to 24th out of 61 dogs; without the bar, we'd have been in 14th place, earned a Q and gone on to the 2nd round.
	Snooker	Her first Masters Snooker. A tough course that knocked out a lot of dogs. We hung in until #6 in the closing--a threadle--and I moved too soon and pushed her past the 2nd jump. Even so, we were 7th out of 33 dogs, missing a super-Q by only 2 places.
Sunday	Snooker	Got through 4 opening 7s with only one knocked bar on a 7, then on #3 in closing she went into the wrong side of tunnel #3, something I hadn't even anticipated. My fault--I had run beyond it and was looking back at her.
	Standard	Missed up on the dogwalk, plus one refusal. But otherwise very nice.
	Team Jumpers	A twisty technical course and we ended up offcourse into a tunnel, probably my fault again.
	Grand Prix Rd 1	The 4th obstacle was the dogwalk and she missed the up contact again--I was on edge the rest of the way, but no other faults, so we earned another Q to the nationals and went on to Round 2. 21st of 44 dogs.
	Relay	Tika was very fast; her partner was very slow. Still, between them they earned a Q.
Monday	Standard	Finally! Our first masters Standard Q! Placed 6th of 40.
	Team Snooker	A good girl. Got all the way through, on a course that we ran very conservatively but that wiped out a lot of competitors. Knocked the 1st red in the opening but I had planned for it and we continued smoothly through the 3 optional reds and the closing. 13 of 42 dogs.
	Gamblers	A nice opening. In the right place for the gamble but I probably turned her the wrong way over the #2 obstacle and she came back over the #1.
	Grand Prix Rd 2	We were both hot and tired. 3 5-pt faults and I don't know what 2 of them were--one was probably up on dogwalk. Known one was a refusal on badly directed weaves. But I don't think we had bars down.
	Jumpers	Last run of the weekend. Tika's 17th of the weekend; my 28th. 6:30 on a very hot day. Offcourse almost immediately, so we kept going--she knocked 3 bars on this course. Herky jerky handling and turning.
	Team Relay	Tika did great. But over 5 classes, our team missed Q for the nationals.

Jake
Saturday	Standard	An extremely challenging course for large, fast dogs. Of all heights of Performance dogs, 13 of 22 E'd on this course and only 3 Qed. So we were inbetween--didn't Q, didn't go off course, but not fast, not accurate, with 5 faults for flying off his Dogwalk down contact and 10 seconds over time to make up for all the wide turns and recovery times. It is so hard to run him with his deafness. If he loses sight of me, he doesn't check in, just keeps going, then I stop to wait for him, then when he figures out I'm not there, he comes back but thereafter runs slower, etc. He seems to like going out there and has fun until that happens, then he's clearly more cautious and concerned.
	Jumpers	Smooth but not particularly fast; still, we were more than 6 seconds under course time, took a Q and 3rd of 7 dogs.
	Snooker	Jake and I used to be a wonderful snooker team. Now I can't send him away from me and expect him to be making tight turns to come back, so it really hampers the kinds of openings I can pick and our general level of success. Picked a very simple opening sequence, then he missed the weave entry to a 6-pole weaves, completed them, then I had to pull him back around to restart them so we could go on. Got all the way through to the last obstacle--which was a 6-pole weave--and the whistle blew. We had enough points for a Q and 3rd of 4th place, but way out of place for a Super-Q (even had we completed #7, we'd have been 2 points under the first-place dog).
	Babar Pairs	Paired with, of all dogs, Babar. Fairly smooth on a not-too-tough course. No Qs involved, just for fun. Babar not zippy. 6th of 11 pairs.
Sunday	Snooker	Got him revved up ahead of time and we whipped through the first sets of jumps and tunnels but then he got ahead of me and I couldn't call him off of an offcourse.
	Standard	Ran across and off the table again, dagnabbit. Got his down contacts with a tremendous amount of help. A variety of refuals and it was just a mess, finally Eed offcourse.
	Grand Prix Rd 1 (Performance)	Not super fast. Barely got contacts with help. Missed weave entry for a 5-point refusal, but managed to make it to Round 2. Only 2.5 seconds under course time.
Monday	Standard	Another mess. Flew off contacts, I crossed in the wrong place and pushed him into an offcourse, just ugly.
	Gamblers	Picked a conservative opening that he got through OK with a bit of a fumble on an attempted serpentine, then got to our last obst before the gamble, and the whistle didn't blow. Send him over my spare obstacle and called him back, and the whistle still didn't blow. Between the fumble on the serpentine AND using the spare obstacle AND my last obstacle having been an aggressive plan anyway, I yelled to the judge while I tried to figure out what to do next, "That's a lot more than 25 seconds!" Finally the timer sounded and we attempted the gamble but he had no momentum and couldn't carry out to #2. Sure enough, the timer had failed to go off after the opening, so the judge let us run it again. I gave Jake a few treats and we ran it again immediately. This time our placement was perfect when the whistle sounded and he got the gamble like an old pro. It's been a while.
	Grand Prix Rd 2	Another unmitigated disaster. Popped both down contacts, refusals everywhere, finally missed a jump for an offcourse.
	Jumpers	Jake's last run of the weekend. Amazingly, Jake was ready for it. Although we weren't fast, and had some iffy turns, he stuck with me and we were 4 seconds under time, for a Q and our first and only 1st place of the weekend, out of 4 dogs.