Practice? Who needs practice?

 

Practice is overrated, yes?  That's the stance I'm taking going into our second USDAA trial this weekend.  Life has been a little on the crazy side the last week or so and as a result we have done, well, pretty much no training to speak of.  Because the table & teeter are in the yard I have incorporated them into our fetching games, but that's it.  It's something, I suppose.

I had high hopes that we'd be able to get some more teeter practice in on Monday, as Family Dog Center had an open agility session on the schedule.  I had spoken to our friend Travis about the possibility of setting up something NON-NADAC for this session to give people a chance to work on equipment that we don't see enough.  He was all for it.  Then he didn't get scheduled to work.  :o(

I had picked up a shift at the shelter on Monday and called FDC on my drive back to Sparta.  I was hoping to talk to Travis to confirm that it was worth the bother of driving all the way back to La Crosse with the dogs, only to find out that A) He wasn't working and B) the teacup equipment was still out from the trial over the weekend.  Well great.  Lovely.  So much for that idea.

If the rain holds off this afternoon I plan to set up something using the table, teeter, chute & broad jump just so Secret sees all of it again before the trial -- and then that's it!  We leave for the Cities Friday afternoon for a fun-filled full weekend of USDAA!  Kaiser and Secret are both entered in all of the P1 classes plus Performance Speed Jumping.  That amounts to five classes on Saturday and three classes on Sunday (unless someone manages to make it into the second round of PSJ!).

I don't know if I'm going to get video.  :o(  My friend, Rich -- The person who essentially talked me into jumping over to USDAA in the first place -- isn't coming to this trial and are only a small handful of people I know.  That kind of sucks.  It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity to meet new people, but I'm not really the type of person to go up to a total stranger and ask them to video my runs.  Meh, we'll see.  Maybe my desperate desire to have our runs recorded will trump my social fears.  lol

We haven't had a hotel stay since Champs.  This will be the first time Secret & Kaiser travel to an away trial without Luke, so that will be a new experience for them (and me!).  I kind of look forward to only having the two dogs to worry about and hope it gives me a little more time to spend with them before and after runs -- although there are only 5-7 dogs in each of our P1 classes, and two of them are mine!  So while the rest of the day will be pretty low key, it will be a mad dash of craziness during our classes.  Oh well.

I was unable to find a spare minute (or $$) to take Secret to the chiropractor before this trial, so we'll just be depending on the magical powers of her Back on Track mesh sheet.

I got some not so wonderful news about the future of my employment last week.  As a result, I have no idea what opportunities I'll have to trial in the coming months -- knowing this, I'm going to try to enjoy myself this weekend and really try not to think about the fact that I may not get to keep doing this.