Norcal Golden Trial 11-11-12

I am bumbling my way though this, as I am a beginning blogger lol.

The past 2 days we were up in Santa Rosa competing with the boys.  I THOUGHT  I had NQ'ed in every possible way over the years but today was a new one for me.  On Chudleigh's standard run he came around the wrong side when I did a front cross and to keep from falling down when he hit me I threw my hand out to catch my balance, but I hit the wing and brought the whole jump down!  Yup, I dropped the bar instead of my dog!  Shame on me, except for that fiasco he would have q'ed.                       

With all of Chud's medical problems I bumped him down to novice preferred as he was unable to get even close to course time.  Wouldn't you know his first time in the ring doing novice jumpers he was so kerflummoxed at seeing only 6 weave poles that he popped out at the 5th pole looking for the rest, and this was just as I blinked and turned my head to see  where we were going next.  Now remember this is a dog with his AXJ so you would THINK he could handle 6 poles.  Um,  with boxers you don't think.                                                                                                                     

Yesterday in standard Chuds bailed on the teeter but did everything else fine.            

Yesterday Rollo was more confident in the ring and in both of his runs he ran over to introduce himself to the pole setter, eating up far too much precious time.  He made his open standard debut and it took him 2 tries to get the weaves so even if he hadn't gone visiting we wouldnt' have qualified.

Today I tried T2B with Rollo.  Um, in a nutshell he ran out of time due to a LONG visit with a pole setter.  He ran well though and I was pleased, the buzzer sounded when we were 3 obstacles from the finish.  

Rollo's open standard run today was better, no visiting and if it hadn't been for Trolls in the tunnels he would have qualified!  He aced the weaves, and galloped along paying great attention.  The tunnels were dark and the entry was straight on with a very sharp U in it.  Too scary, he popped out and refused to go back in.  Same thing with another tunnel.  Darn those tunnel monsters.

As I said earlier, Chudleigh's standard run would have qualified if I hadn't run into the jump.  He bravely did his teeter and I was very pleased.

Final class of the day for both of them was novice jumpers and they BOTH QUALIFIED!  Hallelujah, Charlie is always so pleased when "his" dogs qualify.  For some reason Chuds fluffed the weaves and popped out at the 5th pole but I saw it and brought him back around to redo them.  That ate up precious time so I ran as fast as I possibly could to save the run as the clock was not our friend.  I didn't collapse  and his 93 was all time faults.

Thankfully there were about 18 dogs until Rollo went in which game me time to catch my breath.  This dratted congestive heart failure is such a nuisance sometimes.  Rollo missed a jump and we had to circle  and redo it which ate up time so his score was a skin of his teeth Q with an 85. 

Chuds has really aged and I think he looks a lot like Zorro with the greying eyebrows.  He sees the oncologist next week for a recheck but so far so good.  I am still trying to get his prednisone weight off, and it is a hard battle.  The drugs really messed up his metabolism.