For the 3rd year in a row, we attended the FRAC USDAA trial at The Ranch in Loveland. The arena up there is great and there is lots of grass for the dogs to play in just outside. We like the venue and FRAC does a great job with the trial.
Once again, Brisco got to stay home so Mariah and I had a girls weekend away. She didn't seem to mind too much and ran well for me. Since I originally planned on running Brisco, I didn't enter Mariah in everything. I only had her in Gamblers, Pairs, Snooker and the 2 tournament classes.
We started the weekend with Gamblers. It was a fairly easy looking 4 jump sequence - if you were able to get a good start on the gamble. There was a tunnel trap at the beginning and if you started at the wrong angle, you were likely to get the tunnel. In the opening, I figured we'd only have enough time to do the A-frame twice, weaves once and dog walk once. We ended up with more time than I thought, so we hit the dog walk twice and had to kill some time on jumps. The horn sounded and I sent her over the dog walk which started our gamble perfectly! She went right out and did all 4 jumps easily. Only 1 more Gamble Q for her PIII Gamblers title!
Next up was Perf Grand Prix. Mariah had a nice run and we ended up taking 1st place! We didn't have a ton of competition, but we've never taken 1st in Perf GP before so it was nice to get the bye voucher. I don't think we're going to regionals, but if we were, we'd use it!
PIII Pairs followed GP. PIII 8" and 12" dogs is a very small group. In order to get your pairs title, you need 5 Q's with 5 different dogs. At most trials there are just 3 of us competing, so it's been very hard to get Q's with 5 different dogs! For this weekend, Brianna agreed to run her dog TJ in Perf. in order to help us get a Q. He's not always fond of weaves, but we got lucky and the course only required one dog to weave, so we took that half. My bad handling caused a refusal, but both dogs were fast enough so we got the Q! Whoo hoo! 4 down and 1 to go. We'll pair with Jan & Alley in May and hopefully get that last Q.
The last run of the day was Perf. Speed Jumping. Mariah usually does really well and makes it to the second round, but I guess after getting 3 well-earned Q's, she wanted to have fun. Coming out of a tunnel before the very last jump, Mariah looked at me, but decided to take a different jump that was closer to her. I was facing the right way and calling her, but she didn't care. Oh well, she was having fun. :)
On Sunday we were just entered in Snooker so we slept in a little longer, then went up. We got there before Masters/PIII Standard started, so I filled in at the score table to kill some time. Snooker was next and the 7 pt obstacle was a jump/weave combo. I don't usually like the 7 pt weaves for Mariah so I walked it with one 7 and two 6's (tunnel). We need 2 more Super Q's and Mariah was 3rd, so we watched the first 2 dogs. Dog 1 did two 7s and one 6 with some bobbles. If they didn't have bobbles, there'd be no way to beat them in time, but it got me thinking that we may have a chance. The 2nd dog got blown off quickly, so I made a last minute strategy change and decided to go for two 7s and one 6. Unfortunately I was a bit too far ahead on one of the sets of weaves and she hit the second pole. I fixed it (without knowing the points still count). We continued and I was really pushing for speed in the closing and Mariah went out and took an extra jump before the last set of weaves. I didn't really mind since I had already given up thinking our bobble on the weaves in the opening didn't count. I let my handling slide so we missed out on the 7 in the close. I found out after the run that if the dog hits the 2nd pole, you can still get points as long as you fix it! Doh! I just assumed we didn't get the points, so I let my handling slide from that point on. If I would have known, we would have tied for 1st with points, but our time probably would have been just out of Super Q range. Oh well - 2 more trials in May to try for the SQs.
Overall I had a fun weekend with Mariah. It was odd running just one dog, but I was able to help at the score table and we ended up winning a Canine Massage DVD in the worker raffle (Hands On - Canine Therapeutic Massage by Dr. Cindy DiFranco). I watched it and it's a pretty good video! It gave me a couple techniques that I can use to work on Brisco to help him heal faster. I gave him a massage last night and he seemed to like it. Mariah will get her massage tonight.
