Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Tika's Nationals Results

SUMMARY: Well, last post except for Tika's statistics.

Class	Place/ # of dogs	Faults	Our time/pts	Best time/pts	Notes
Team Jumpers	62/145	5	32.19	24.34	Left start line while I led out, slowed, almost stopped (wasting 2-3 seconds) in front of the 3rd jump; knocked bar when I told her to go. The run looks fast and smooth on video, but even adjusting for the lead-out issue, we're way behind the fastest dogs. How to improve that? I dunno--Tika will be 7 in February. Can we compete with the youngest, fastest dogs? Like Boost? Summary: Good enough. Only 21 of the 26" dogs ran clean on this course, so with our mere 5 faults and a total point count of 37.19, we're in good position, and a full 59 of the 26"ers Eed, losing 100 points each, so even better for us.
Team Snooker	125/145	n/a	21	59	An all-bar course, so Tika might still have knocked a bar somewhere, as her teammate did--but I did the unforgiveable and FORGOT WHERE I WAS GOING, so sent her to the wrong obstacle. Sheesh. Summary: Bad news. But at least it's not 0, which some dogs managed.
Team Standard	90/145	10	37.87	30.33	Dogwalk and Aframe contacts. We lose speed on contacts because she slows down--and then lose points because she flys off. (At least this year we never got called on our dogwalk UP.) Summary: Good enough; again, only 26 of the 26" dogs ran clean, and 27 Eed, losing 120 points, so Tika's 47.87 isn't bad.
Team Gamblers	30/145	n/a	49	59	Aa good run, she kept her bars up & made her 2 contacts. I might have squeezed in 3 more opening points, but it was too risky. Summary: Very good. I'm pleased with this run, although it's not the 12th we placed last year.
Team overall	??/201	n/a	?	?	Still waiting. I've been in touch with the results person. She's had the PDFs ready to go for several days. For some reason she can't post PDFs, only JPEGs, and for some reason the person who CAN post PDFs isn't. She says that if she has to, she'll post all 27 pages individually as JPEGs, which'll take forever, and won't be easy for us to read. Hey--isn't this 2007? Are tools HARDER to use now? Jeepers. And it's FRIDAY already. Pleeeeeeze post the results! Summary: Considering that our team had one E, two crappy Snooker runs, and accumulated 40 faults, I'm happy to be near the middle (which is where I think we'll end up). Looking at the 30th place team's (30 went to the finals) times and scores compared to our plans or actuals, even if we had avoided those, I doubt that we'd have made the cut. I'm still amazed that we got in last year. That was just our year!
Steeplechase classic	68/89	10	28.52	24.48	Flew off one of two A-frames and knocked the last bar (my fault). Her speed seemed better compared to the winner, but then, many of the best dogs didn't run this one.