It is a good thing I like agility because we left the house at 6:15 this morning and got home at 6:00 tonight! We entered 6 classes and qualified in 4, and it really should have been all 6.
First class of the day starting at 8:00 was novice FAST which I entered both boys in. They ran small to tall so Rollo was the 5th dog on the line. He did great, nailed the send and we got a very respectable score. Unfortunately the timer messed up so we had to re-run for score. The judge said not to worry about the send as he did it fine so when he backed out of the tunnel in the send I didn't re-do it and just went on. Bad move, that was a huge misunderstanding on my part and the judge said she was sorry but couldn't qualify me for that. I told her that since he had handily qualified the first time why couldn't I just take minimum score of 50 to keep the Q. She said that would work so that is why his score was 50 points, which still gave him a 2nd place.
Poor Chudleigh was robbed. The brainless steward that was the chute straightener did NOT straighten the chute and Chuds got all wadded up in it. The poor guy was struggling to get through it and it wasn't letting him, I was amazed it didn't come off the barrel. Anyway he had to give up and come back out the entrance. Unfortunately that was the 2nd obstacle and was worth 9 points so there wasn't enough time to get the required 50 points and make it to the finish jump to stop the clock. He got the send and even sailed through the weaves speedily for 10 points. The judge at least let he put him through the chute after we were done so he wouldn't have a a problem and he went through it fine. She was muttering that she had never seen a dog get tangled up like that in a short chute. Well, if the stupid chute fluffer doesn't do it correctly it will happen. I hope her day job isn't packing parachutes.
Then we got to hang out for hours until Rollo had open standard. He was flying along great, wonderful concentration, everything spot on UNTIL the weaves. He got the entrance and was zipping though them when around the 7th pole he spotted a tiny brown pebble on the weave base that looked EXACTLY like a piece of kibble! He stopped to sniff and in his disappointment that it wasn't a yummy treat lost count and missed a pole. Being open I redid the weaves as we are allowed one screw up and can still qualify. He sailed thought them perfectly and finished the course, but the time killed us. We lost 18 points in time faults plus the 5 for the table fault.
Everything else was rosy. In novice jumpers they both qualified with perfect scores way under course time although Chuds was a 2nd place. Rollo did a 42 second course in 33.47 to finish his novice jumpers title. Chudleigh got his 2nd jumpers preferred leg doing a 45 second course in 30.50 seconds.
Final class of the day was Chudleigh's novice standard. He had one mess up. Due to great speed he sailed off the table and had to hop back on. Even with that he had a faster course time than the 1st place dog but 100 beats a 95. He did a 74 second course in 53.05. I am in awe, I have my Chudleigh back. He feels good and looks wonderful. Not too shabby for a dog that had a grim 30% survival chance intoned by the cancer department up at Davis.
Tomorrow we get to play again. I hope we get home earlier. Driving home from Santa Rosa in the darkness and rain was no fun. Traffic was quite heavy and the oncoming headlights were brutal. Poor Charlie had white knuckles.
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