Busy CPE Day 1

SUMMARY: Each dog Qed 4 out of 5; filmed for TV!

A day of mixed success, although the goods outweighed the bads.

The weather was lovely; started out with frost on everything, but warmed up to a short-sleeves kind of sunny day. Should be more of the same tomorrow.

Tika, who has been keeping her bars up most of the time in CPE, has started knocking them again--only one today, in Jumpers, putting us even farther behind in Jumpers than everything else towards our (far-distant) C-ATE award. She had some very nice runs but one of the fastest dogs at the trial this weekend was the only other dog competing in our class and level. So, instead of a given 1st place in everything, we had to work at it:
*In Jumpers, Tika had the fastest time on an otherwise smooth run but knocked a bar, so no Q and no 1st.
*In Wildcard, she had a beautiful run that made it look easy and the fastest time of all dogs all heights in levels 4/5/C (about 55 dogs) by a couple of seconds, so she had a well-earned Q and first.
*In Colors, I neglected to call her for a turn after a straight tunnel, so she blasted straight out and away from where she needed to be, easily wasting 2 seconds or more, which is how much we ended up behind the first-place dog (Annie).
*In Full House, Annie had a lovely run but ran a slightly different course than we did. I thought we had her on points, but in reviewing the videotape, I discovered that in fact Tika wasn't quite out of the last 3-point tunnel when the whistle blew, so we were 3 points behind Annie. (But were were still among the top few out of all dogs all heights all levels.)
*In Standard, she had a very fast run except where she ran through (at least not jumping over) the dogwalk down contact and veered off towards the wrong obstacle before I could call her back, putting her I think about a second behind the first place dog (Annie). But again, our speed was among the fastest of all 55ish dogs all heights all levels on that course.


Boost did much better about bars jumping 20" this week instead of 24" two weeks ago. At least I have that option in CPE. She knocked only one bar...
* ... in Wildcard, which at Level 4 is still a Q, but not a first place, especially since she also ran past the first set of weaves and I had to bring her back around to restart them.
* Her Jumpers started with her running past the second jump on a lead-out pivot, so I reset her before it and walked back out to position to make her take the jump. So it was a Q but with a really slow time. But that also moves her up to Level 5 in Jumpers for tomorrow.
* Her Colors was nice, I believe a first place, and that last Q we needed to get completely out of Level 3! W00t! That's our level 3 title!
* Her Standard run was drop-dead gorgeous, beating even the super Steamer (who for example won Steeplechase last weekend) and she earned a 1st on that, although Annie (at a higher level) still beat her by a tenth of a second or so. But we're in the range! Woo hoo!
* Her 7-7-7 12-pole weaves snooker opening, covering 6 jumps as well (#7 a 2-part obstacle of jump plus weaves) was also drop-dead gorgeous--fast, driven, tight turns, bars up, driving out ahead of me. But then in the closing when I tried to do a rear cross--our bugaboo these days--she just kept refusing and refusing and refusing the #3 jump and I had to run past it to get her over it--at which point she saw a lovely juicy off-course tunnel and took it. Sigh.

Meanwhile, a graduate student in Broadcasting at San Francisco State came down for the day to film for a class project that will also probably air on the college station eventually. Our main club contact turned her loose on me, and she focused on my dogs and their runs for the day, although I tried to direct her towards people with small dogs, more rescue dogs, someone who earned her championship that day, dogs who also do therapy, dogs of less common breeds, dogs who do tricks (well-that's almost all of us, right?), and the trial chair and secretary and so on. She got tons of film and was there almost all day, got most of my dogs' runs, too.

I'm eager to see what she turns it into. Probably a 5-minute segment on their sports show.

I'm tired. Should go to bed.

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