New Title!

Pecan Valley DreamCatcher OAP NJP CGC

Mikey finished his Open Standard title with a perfect score of 100, first place and a run time of 48.69 seconds (SCT was 76 s)!! I was soooo proud of him! He's so fast, but still laser accurate at the same time. It was definitely one of those course runs where everything is so in sync, it feels like you and your dog are even breathing together!!! Such an awesome feeling! The course is below.

Unfortunately, we imploded for our Open Jumpers course. Everything started out well, but Mikey skipped a pole in the weaves, and my brain went. . . pffft. I was trying to remember if we could go back and retry the weaves in open while he finished the weaves, couldn't remember, and went on to the next jump. . . and then went off on a course of my own. . . and then realized I was off course and then my brain really started sizzling, so Mikey tried to fix things by adding extra jumps to the course. . . Oh well. Once we got back on course, we finished well, and we both had a good time regardless.

Now, Miss Holly. First, all those crossed fingers must have worked; her first official measure was exactly 11 inches! Yippee!!! Exactly the right height for her to run at 4 inches preferred. One more official measure and we're safe. Holly did pretty nicely for her first trial. She went around one jump, since I forgot to keep an eye on her for a second (duh! it takes less energy to go around, instead of over, even if the jump is only 4 inches, or so Holly says). And, Holly took a short detour right before the very last jump to go say high to a ring steward. Everything else was pretty darn good. Not bad for her first trial. Of course, trialing with Holly is icing on the cake, I'm glad we can share agility in any form.

My dad's dog Meg did very well. It was her birthday yesterday. She took tour of the ring (twice) during her Standard course, but wasn't wildly out of control. Then, in her Jumpers class, she took first place with a score of 95. Man, oh man! She is one FAST dog!

We had a great day, although I wish it could have been a little cooler. A trick I've learned, in case anyone is interested. My dad and I don't like crating 'inside' with everyone else. It's just so noisy, it's not relaxing for me, and I can't imagine the dogs find it very restful either. So we keep our dogs in the car at trials. Besides two crate fans for each dog, here's my little trick; garden shade cloth. It can be hard to find the right type of shade cloth; it's the mesh type that's a loose enough mesh to allow air to flow through, but still provide shade. Doubled up, you still get good air flow, and I roll all the windows down and close the cloth into the tops of the doors and let it hang over the windows. One long piece along the passenger side of the car, and separate pieces for the front and back windows on the driver's side (so I can get the dog's in and out; I also try to park to that the sun shines on the passenger side, and then I don't have to worry about putting anything on the driver's side). I open the hatch in the back, and use clips to hold a big piece that drapes over the hatch all the way to the ground. And of course I put my normal front windshield sun block in place. The temperature yesterday got up to upper 80's, but the interior of my car was still nice and cool!

We've enjoyed a nice lazy day today; back to reality tomorrow (I've got an interview with a company in St. Louis next week, and no. I haven't heard back from the company in Kansas City yet. I got an auto reply to my voice mail on Monday that my HR contact was out of town all last week; if I don't hear from her tomorrow, I will call again).

Next trial is the weekend of the 25th.

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi' and 'We had FUN!!!!'