CPE Day 2

SUMMARY: Tika Qed 8 of 10; Boost 4 of 10; some interesting results.

I'd love to have, just once, a perfect weekend or high in trial! We've come so close so many times with all my assorted dogs. Oddly enough for Tika, this weekend we completely muffed Saturday's Snooker and Sunday's Jackpot but managed to keep all our bars up for TWO Qualifying runs in Jumpers and also Colors and Wildcard, which we often have problems with because of the bars. Why I can't get it all together in the same weekend just once--

Boost surprised me this morning in her first run of the day, a Standard course, by entering and completing the weave poles at full speed with no hesitation or bobbles. Surprised me enough that I let her drift off course on the next obstacle and had to bring her back around for the correct one. Fortunately at CPE Level 3 that's still a Qualifying score, just not a placement. Shame, because even with that, she was the fastest of all 27 Level 3 dogs. She's a fast girlie.

Which brings us back to trying to compare Tika's and Boost's speeds. At different levels, they seldom have the same course, and even when they do, they don't always run equally well. Take today's Jumper's, for example, where they ran the same course: Boost made two huge, wide turns, wasting considerable time for the carryout, slow down, and swing back in to me. Then on a serpentine, which we're weak on, she turned the wrong way before the last jump, for a big spin, before finally taking it correctly. She ended up clean for a Q.

Tika's run, by comparison, was professional, smooth, without any major flaws. She turned exactly on cue, kept her bars up, flowed around the course. She was clean with a time of 23.72, using electronic timing so we know the times are accurate and equitable, which was beaten by only five of 100 dogs on the same course...one of whom, of all things, was Boost, at 23.64 even with all those wide runouts and spins! So maybe Boost IS the faster dog. This astonished me. If only we can get our stuff together--

And speaking of getting our stuff together, as in weaving--Boost never came close to doing a correct set of weaves the rest of the day, and our handling and teamwork left much to be desired, although we did somehow squeak out a sloppy Jumpers Q with one bar down.

Overall, 7 of Tika's 8 Qs put her in the top 3-6 of 70 to 100 (or more) dogs on the same course; always a nice thing although would've been nice to be THE #1 dog once out of all those. But I'm not complaining (much); they were all firsts in her own division.

And Boost managed enough Qs so that she'll now be in Level 4 in five of the seven CPE classes, which means the same courses as Tika so I'll have fewer separate walkthroughs and conflicts in the future. This is good.

My knee is even less happy today than yesterday, but the pain at least has moved from where it was before surgery, and it's still not swollen, so SOMETHING has changed. It's been iced and antiinflammatoried and hot tubbed and now it's going to be taken to bed. 'Night.

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