Bay Team Southwest Regional Trial This Weekend

SUMMARY: ...and it's going to be hot and busy.

It's that time of year again, when the Bay Team girds its collective loins and hosts the 4-ring Southwest USDAA Regional Championships. The weather, having been teasingly mild all summer, has decided to take a turn for the torrid. It was 98 at my house yesterday. Fortunately, however, the 10 miles difference between here and there is also typically about a 10-degree difference, as it was only 89 in Sunnyvale. (That's the moderating influence of the San Francisco Bay.) And there's often an afternoon breeze coming off the Bay, which will help.

I'll be running my dogs in all 4 rings--although, fortunately, by moving Boost up to Masters in Gamblers and Snooker, on Sunday and Monday that'll be only one run each day in the fourth ring, making the stretch of my attention not quite as thin.

We have 530 dogs registered, for 4,646 runs over the weekend. That's an average of 387 runs per ring per day, which is a full day but not excessive. Of course--averages don't always work out, as in fact Saturday is the worst with 1,854 runs, or 463 runs per ring! Now THAT's a long, hard day no matter how you run it.

Other fun statistics: the most-common breed is Border Collie; we got 215 of 'em (that's almost 40% of the dogs). Next: Aussies with 59, shelties with 45, and All-Americans with 33.

The most common dog name is Max (5 dogs); the most common handler name is Linda (8). The oldest dog competing is 13.

These and other interesting data are posted in Karey's lovely statistics PDF on our trial web page.

My goals for this weekend with Tika: Win Grand Prix. Win Steeplechase. Win everything else we're entered in--except maybe Team, where I think we're still focusing on "qualify" since one of our teammates is not yet Qed. (OK, winning events are "stretch goals" for us, but a woman's reach should exceed her grasp, or what's an agility trial for? (mild apologies to Robert Browning.))

My goals for Boost are to earn an Advanced Standard and Advanced Pairs Q, and to Q in Team so we'll have *something* to do at the Nationals.

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