Thursday, July 30, 2009

Qualified for Nationals!

I haven't been posting much lately as I've spent the last month consumed with my "job" as Volunteer Scheduler for the 2009 AAC Nationals. 300+ volunteers and 1000+ shifts = oh. my. GOD! What a huge job. I think I sent and received more emails in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life. Thank goodness for the support and guidance of our Volunteer Coordinator Extraordinaire and for the amazing software program that made it possible. I can NOT imagine doing that by hand. [shudder] It was fun, and I was soooo impressed by how eager people are to help out, but I'm so happy to have my life back now!

So today was the one-day pre-qualifier for dogs who missed Regionals due to injury or other valid reasons. Like Regionals, there are six rounds (two Standards, two Jumpers, two Gamblers), judged on a points basis. Standards start with 100 points, Jumpers with 75 points, faults deducted. In Gamblers you keep all your opening points, then if you get the main gamble you get 35 points added to your opening score. Bonus points for being clean under time. There's the option to drop out after accruing the minimum 350 points required to qualify for Nationals.

I guess I ruined the suspense with the blog post title, but here's the play by play:

Standard #1: A really nice, flowing, straightforward course. Walter ran really well, no weave issues, stuck his teeter and dogwalk. We got 5 faults which I think must have been a missed frame contact (!). Score: 95 points.

Jumpers #1: Hmmm. Okay now I'm starting to stress a bit: Walter, Mr. Reliable Poopy Pants, has not yet had his second poop of the day. Please oh please don't poop in the ring... this would be a terrible first time for that! So anyway. I led out and Walter was a star, holding his sit-stay (well, with the usual creeping of course). However, in his haste to catch up he knocked a bar. Somewhere else he got a refusal. This was a challenging course, definitely making up for the easiness of the Standard. Score: 65 points. Aggregate: 160.

Gamblers #1: Still no action in the poop department! Gah! Well, as someone commented the other day, dogs aren't machines, so even Mr. Predictable Poops has the right to be unpredictable now and then. Well, this Gamblers course was super for Walter. He got both minis, one of which tested a distance dogwalk, the other a distance teeter. For a not-a-tunnel-suck, he sent out to his tunnels quite well. We were in a good place when the buzzer went and he did his thing great! The test was a distance frame and an out-tire. So he got the gamble! 76.78 points. Aggregate: 236.78.

Standard #2: Finally! He had a good BM before this run. Phew. Another pretty easy, non-trappy Standard and he went clean. Given all his weave-popping in practice lately, I was amazed that he didn't pop despite it being so hot. What a good boy: 108.75 points. Aggregate: 345.53.

Jumpers #2: Man, another brutal Jumpers course. It was not pretty. Walter was clearly tired and hot and I was not exactly on my game so we ended up with 3, count'em, 3 refusals. But, at least we managed to avoid costly offcourses. 56.47 points. Aggregate: 402.

Gamblers #2: Woot! We'd already scored the minimum 350 points, so we didn't run this. No point, much rather save his enthusiasm for the weekend.

But, we did go and do the warmup run after the Jumpers. 90 seconds to do whatever you want. Toys/food weren't allowed, so I petted him up for sticking his contacts. He seemed to enjoy the relaxed, easygoing time in the ring.

I scratched him from the Steeplechase tomorrow since that was to be my consolation prize if we didn't qualify. So, we'll enjoy a nice day off tomorrow and be ready for an EARLY start to the day on Saturday.

4 comments:

Elayne said...

Congrats! Good luck this weekend, sounds like it'll be fun.

Elf said...

Altogether sounds pretty darned successful. Good luck! (I, too, hate it when the Regular dog becomes...irregular. I stress all day until something moves.)

Muttsandaklutz said...

Thanks :-)

andrea said...

Fantastic - I didn't even sneak a peek - just scrolled down to here to start reading ;)
looking forward to the weekend breakdown :)