Day 2 of NADAC fun!

I have no energy to do ribbon pictures and they would just look the same as all the rest, so video will have to do again for today.  :o)

Secret came home loaded in purple again today, once again running 3/4 at our NADAC trial at Family Dog Center.  Despite waking up feeling sick (although better than I felt when I went to bed!), I somehow managed to pull it all together for 13 runs and think I might have actually been a better handler for my dogs than I was yesterday.  Thank goodness for adrenaline, for without it I would have probably just curled up on Luke's beds with him in his pen.  I should take a picture of that sometime -- he's got it set up like a palace in there.

I couldn't actually get any food into myself this morning, but I was able to stomach my newest addiction -- iced coffee -- so no doubt the sugar & caffeine in that is what helped me to make it through the day.  I was finally able to have some pasta salad after all of my runs were done and I seem to be doing a little better now, so that's good.  Now I'm just dealing with my extremely sore legs from being so stinking out of shape....

I'm super happy with how Secret ran today!  She kept her energy level up from start to finish and even her last round of Regular was pretty darn nice!  In the past she definitely seems to run out of steam by the end of the weekend, but she stayed happy and energetic throughout this time.  I was shocked to hear her barking throughout Luke's video, although she was also barking quite a lot when I took him out (which was right after her runs).  Could someone be getting jealous?  Hard to imagine.

Secret broke her start in Jumpers this morning and caught me by surprise, but thankfully I was able to recover quick enough to direct her.  I'm disappointed in my handling of that run as I never knew what kind of cross I was going to use until I got there.  I kept waffling between front & blind in my head and did end up executing a front each time.  Secret managed to follow me in my spaciness, only going super wide on the last turn.

Chances was tricky, at least for the baby dog.  It involved layering weaves at a distance and I just don't think she has the impulsion to do that just yet.  I did tell her "out weave" while she was still in the tunnel (so many handlers were late with that....), but she still came out running towards me.  I didn't even try to send her back out because I knew it would never happen and would only frustrate her, so I crossed the line and we finished happy.

My friend Jana stopped by the trial with her big fluffy Aussie boy right as we were preparing to go into the ring for Regular 1.  Wow.  Secret did NOT like that dog and then when Kaiser barked at Robi from his crate Secret's hackles all went up and she tried to whirl around to go after him -- as I dragged her into the ring....  As naughty as all of this behavior was, I have to say that it sure did light a fire under her butt!  That was a great run with really nice speed!  Especially for the second to last class of the weekend!!

The last run was about two seconds slower but still a nice run.  It was a great way to end a great weekend.



Kaiser!!  Kaiser definitely redeemed himself from our zero Q day yesterday.  :o)  I wasn't so sure at the start, though.  As if it weren't bad enough that I was trying not to toss my cookies all morning, Kaiser went and barfed up his entire breakfast in his crate before the first class this morning.  Ewww.  Thank goodness I had a spare towel in the car to cover up the yucky spots after I cleaned it up -- although crate still smelled like vomit the rest of the day.  I turned the fan on Kaiser the rest of the day after that to hopefully help him feel better.  I think he just got really anxious about running.  He thinks he should get to run in every single class all day now.  :o)

Running Open Hoopers (numbered) was about as much fun for Kaiser as I figured it would be.  Too bad I screwed up in the first half and caused him to turn away into nothingness.  Since Kaiser is always looking for the next obstacle to take, he just circled around and took the same hoop again.  Blargh...  All my fault!  After that we just went, "Wheeeee!" to finish the run.  Jumpers was all sorts of "whee" as well for a nice, zippy Q.

Chances was totally a Kaiser course.  He totally digs his weaves and would probably do them 100' away from me if needed.  The line to the "out tunnel" under the dog walk was very dog-friendly and Kaiser always appreciates a good tunnel.  I really made sure to emphasize my handling of the last two obstacles as it was easy for the fast dogs to go wide and miss the last hoop.  Kaiser nailed the course with ease and brought home his 12th Elite Chances Q!  So yes, that means that he just needs ONE MORE to NATCH!!  :o)

I completely over handled the dog walk in both rounds of Regular.  Poor Kaiser, but all of the dog walks this weekend had tunnel discriminations and I wasn't able to beat him to the end.  This requires me to loudly shout, "WAIT!" at him to get him to stop.  The good news is that he did stop!  In the first run, however, the course required us to turn and he shot off through the hoop in front of him (as he always does).  Thankfully in the second run we were to simply continue on straight, so this was right up his alley and he put in a lovely run.



Luke was a good boy again, but I just wasn't fully there for him, I guess.  In Jumpers I faded off the line far too soon on the final turn and pulled him off the far jump.  Totally my fault, so I didn't bother to correct it at all.  It was a really nice run up to to that point, too.

Thankfully Luke can run Chances in his sleep and this course was pretty easy for him.  I made sure to give him his "out weave" directive plenty early and he didn't even blink at me coming out of the tunnel.  Seeing as he's been sucking to every tunnel under the dog walk lately, I didn't worry too much about him getting the wrong thing there.  Again, I made sure to really support that last hoop so he didn't overshoot it.

We had some odd weave issues in the first round of Regular.  First Luke popped at 10 and then he couldn't find the entry for anything.  Once we finally got that, my over handling of the dog walk discrimination pulled him off that, causing more time.  We ended up 6 seconds over time.  He could have gotten a 5 point Q with 5 faults, but oh well.  I hate five point Q's.

In the last run he knocked a bar -- his first and only of the weekend, I might add!  Then he pulled off the dog walk entry again and then dove into the tunnel when I reset him.  I debated pulling him off the course at that point, but he'd been such a good boy all weekend and was running so nice that I thought he'd prefer to finish the course.  The rest was, indeed, lovely -- and no weave issues that time.

No more NADAC until the middle of September now.  I was waffling between the NADAC trial in La Crosse that weekend or a USDAA trial New Berlin at the same time.  With Kaiser needing just the one Q now, I feel I need to try to get it done.  Secret is down to six now, so it wouldn't hurt to try to knock another one or two out for her.  I'm looking at three more NADAC trials left for the year here in La Crosse.  Oh wait, no, four.  There should be one per month from September to December.

Next up we change gears to attend USDAA Regionals in Crystal Lake, IL in just two weeks!  Have I even talked about that???  I entered Secret & Kaiser in the Regional Performance Speed Jumping on Saturday -- it should run later in the day, allowing me to drive down that morning.  Then on Sunday I put them both in the Starters/Advanced ring, where they will each get to run Standard, Gamblers & Jumpers.  And who knows, maybe they'll get to run in the PSJ finals on Sunday, too!  :o)