QQ #1!

It's after 9 p.m. and we just got home from Oshkosh, but I have to do a quick post to share that Secret got her first QQ today! Woot! Woot!  :o)  One down, nineteen more to go. On top of that, she had a firecracker up her butt today and brought home 41 speed points! Can you even believe it?! She more than doubled her Jumpers points from the last trial with 15 (and was only 0.15 away from 16) and 26 points in Standard. Holy crap. She had a great day!

Judge Rod Ramsell came through and brought us more interesting courses than we've seen the last couple of trials. There wasn't anything super crazy or technical, but they offered plenty of chances to have fun. The theme of the day was, "can you take the correct tunnel entrance?" Unfortunately that bit Kaiser in the ass.... I led out with Kaiser on this course and there is absolutely no reason I shouldn't have been able to beat him to the tunnel, but I released him far too soon and got behind.

After that he launched the dog walk contact after I tried to be all fancy and sprint ahead to do a blind cross at the end. Because we'd already NQ'd the run I pushed the table a bit and he did bounce off -- BUT he seemed to actually realize/care that he'd made the mistake and instantly sprang back on by himself, so at least I think he knows what he's supposed to do now. lol He had a nice a-frame hit and finished strong. And.... I just realized that I totally failed to even look at his course time. Hmm. I suck.

With Secret I opted for the running start along the bottom of that first line, so I rear crossed the tunnel with her. I did the same blind cross at the dog walk that I did with Kaiser and she was a good girl. Nailed her teeter, nailed the table, didn't creep the a-frame and her weaves were smoking (well, for her at least!). It was a super nice run. The Malinois in the class smoked us by like 5 seconds, but then we smoked the 3rd place dog by like 4 seconds.  ;o)

I don't know what the hell I did with Kaiser's JWW run. I ended up doing stuff that I'd been thinking about in my head for Secret, but didn't walk at all during Kaiser's walk-through. I led out to jump 2 with Kaiser and did a blind as he came over 5 (not planned with Kaiser...). Then I took off and somehow managed to beat him past 10, so I threw in a front cross before the tunnel. The real "you're a moron" part of the run came on the top line where I somehow managed a blind between 14 & 15 -- and then he ran straight through the weaves on his way to the tunnel. Drat. Why don't I stick with my plan? You think I'd learn my lesson by now. I got way ahead of Kaiser on the weaves and he ended up crashing the next jump.  :o(  Don't get so far ahead of the Klee Kai...

It was after 5 p.m. by the time Secret did her second run, but she was READY! I got her out a smidgen too early and we had to kill some time waiting for our turn. I was sitting on the floor with her and she was play bowing and voluntarily grabbing her leash to tug with me before the run. Crazy.

I started on the left with Secret and ran with her from the start. Rear crossed at three, blinded as she was going over five and then did a blind between ten and eleven. The blind up on the top worked with Secret, but she's far less likely to suck into weaves than Kaiser. I waited for her to come out of the tunnel so that I could race her into the weaves and she had another really nice, driving set of weaves. I made sure to support the last few jumps to make sure I didn't throw the run away. Hooray! We did it! QQ #1 in the bag.  :o) Secret was actually the only 24" dog to qualify, so she won this class.

We can't forget about Kizzy! Our day started out with Novice FAST. You know we have worked on zero distance/sending skills when you look at this map and realize I knew instantly she wouldn't get it. lol There were only two Novice dogs that NQ'd and Kizzy was one. I mean, who doesn't send into a tunnel? The Kizzy dog. Oh well.

But it was a GREAT experience for her! Kizzy did awesome! We started at the jump before the a-frame, did the frame, the tire, failed at the send to the tunnel (because apparently if they refuse it's an NQ, so I just kept going), picked up the jump after the tunnel (I crossed the line), she curled in on me at the next tunnel and I kept going to the weaves. She ran by the weaves the first time, but she got them on the second try! I was handling like a moron and put myself into position for a rear cross at every turn. So, awkward turn over jump after the weaves. NAILED the teeter. She was going so fast as she came up to it that I thought surely she'd fly off the end, but she stopped and rode it down and stayed on when it hit. Maybe she was just surprised? Much cheering! Then we did the jump to the left of the teeter and started heading out. We were somewhere around the double when the horn sounded. Kizzy did the finish jump and then I thought for sure she was going to let me catch her quickly.

Here's where I get to gripe. They let the next dog start before I had Kizzy. Come on, this is Novice. I had a moment of panic as I worried about her running into the ring when the other dog was running. I started slapping her harness on the ground to get her to chase it -- hooray for all of those harness/leash games we played in the basement... It took a couple of tries, but I finally snagged her and it probably felt like it took longer than it did, as the other dog had really just started. Phew. She got 35 points total, so it would have been a nice score had we gotten the send bonus.

I got a couple of (friendly) complaints about Kizzy in the morning, but thankfully she settled down after she got to run (and I spent all of FAST wearing her out). I gave her a chicken foot while I ran Kaiser the first time and after that I really only heard her squeak a few times when there were dogs right by our crates (it was so crowded in the crating area, everyone was on top of each other). The people who had said something in the morning actually commented to me later in the day how much better she'd gotten, so I appreciated that. I'm hoping she'll be so stinking tired at NADAC this weekend that she'll just sleep and not scream.

And with that, we must go to bed.... I'm glad for the 9 a.m. start tomorrow!