BRAG all tournament trial wrap-up

Trial Report time! (enjoy, Kathy!)

I got everything packed and I showered on Saturday night so I could devour every minute of sleep possible Sunday morning, figuring I would need it! I got up at 5:30 and was out of the house by 5:55. Stopped by mom's house to drop Fancy off for my dad to watch during the day, and we were off to the show! We got there a little before 6:30 and started unloading the day-of type stuff, got the score table set up quickly, and began check in and measuring. We started with the first run at 7:35 I think, scheduled to start at 7:30 so that's really not too bad!

Started out with Team Gamblers. I wasn't thrilled with the course - didn't give a lot of great options that had safe contact approaches. Panic did well, tied for 3rd. I was pleased with her during this run. Then... Spry's debut! She held her start-line stay very beautifully and let me lead out. Unfortunately there was quite a distance between what I was taking as obstacle #2 and #3, which was good for distractions! Actually I am pretty sure she passed up jump #2 anyway. She noticed Mike Lifer taking photos (clear on the other side of the ring, I might add!) and ran off to visit. Then she visited Drew. I was able to get her back and she was a little crazy, but then I got her a little settle and did an AF. Unfortunately as she approached I slipped and fell! She ignored that and went on over and I got up and she did a lovely "feet" (much to the surprise of everyone watching I do believe!). We clearly didn't have enough time to do the whole gamble but we did 3 obstacles in a nice fairly controlled manner. This was her best run of the day :)

Team Jumpers - Panic ran great but I directed her into the wrong end of a tunnel unfortunately! Spry visited ring crew again but I got her back and we did the weave poles, very nicely if I do say so myself! We then did a few more jumps but the people were just too tempting, so we left.

Grand Prix - oh grand prix... I did a FC coming our of a tunnel to some WPs and she ran by the entrance. I don't know if I blocked her view or if she thought I was going to keep rotating to the teeter or what, but when I ran Sniper for Jayne he did the same thing so obviously I did something wrong here!! And she missed her DW. Phooey, we really need one more of these...

Team Snooker - I had such an awesome plan. And then on the start line I waffled - should I wrap the 1st jump of the 1st color to the left or right? I decided to go left, Panic decided to go straight. To another color. TWEET! Sweet - one point snooker :) Spry - I came up with a nice baby dog plan (that worked quite well for mom and Fada!). Spry saw a group of 4 people sitting on the ground about 30' from the ring. ZOOM. "Thanks Elaine, we're done!" Whoa - ZERO point snooker! They were very good and neutral though so no rewards for Spry for visiting.

Team Standard - Panic ran very nicely here (helps that there was no DW!) and did run around a slightly offset double at the end because I just ran and gave a slight hand signal but no verbal. Bad mommy! Other than that it was good, but I can tell she is getting tired and slowing down. Spry - It started jump-tire. Tire was the one obstacle I wasn't sure she'd do because she's had very little practice on it. She did jump-tire very nice but when I cued a 90 degree turn after to the teeter she just kept on going, and going, and going out of the ring... *sigh*

Steeplechase Rd1 - Panic did pretty well! Again she was pokey, but I was happy with this run. She seeded 3rd for finals. I came up with a short path of jumps to get Spry in and out of the ring successfully... well she went out of the ring alright, just like all of the other runs.

Team Relay - one of the ONLY team relays I've done where Panic and I haven't done totally goofy things! All team members ran nice and clean (Sniper & Furley) and we got 2nd in this class, and our team ended up Qing despite my attempts to sabotage with a jumpers E and a 1 point snooker :)

Steeplechase Rd 2 - Panic did pretty nicely and I tried to push her but she was really beat by this point (as was I!). I did leave her in the poles to execute a FC in front of the next jump, which is something I don't usually do in trials because it usually doesn't work and she pulls out. But she stayed in! Great to know, and something I will start throwing in more because there have been many situations I wish I had this skill but didn't yet. She ended up 3rd here too, just behind 2nd place but about 3 seconds behind 1st place.

Overall - Panic had a good day, MY brain was frazzled all day long and I was having a hard time focusing. So all of our mistakes are squarely on me. I was happy with Spry's first run, and not even that bummed about the 2nd. She got worse as the day wore on though. Luckily no one pet her when she ran out of the ring. She used to not be able to work at the building with anyone else there and we got over that, so we'll get over this too... I will add more distractions at class though, such as people sitting on the ground, and eventually hopefully very close to where she is working. I will try to get her outside to a few places as well just don't have a lot of opportunities for that other than our backyard. I'm not upset/disappointed with her at all. She is a baby baby dog and I know has the obstacle skills down. I am THRILLED that even with all her excitement she held every single start line stay, had a beautiful contact on the one contact we got one, performed her weaves, and also a tire!

It was my first time as secretary. Pre-trial it wasn't bad at all, although I barely got any sleep Sat because I kept going over checklists in my brain. At the trial it wasn't bad either since I've worked so closely with my mom for so many trials. The only bad thing was being the punching bag for the one upset exhibitor! But I think I handled it ok, and it really didn't stress me out too much since there was nothing we could do anyway. After steeple rd 2 we ended up with over 560 runs, and I honestly don't know what time we were done, around 7pm? That's a long day, but considering how long some 330 run AKC trials can last when they only have 3 courses to set, I think it's not too shabby at all. I never felt like we were lacking for workers, and I didn't personally hear any grumbling from exhibitors. I think our new rubber contacts went over well, and I know I was glad to have them for some of the contact approaches we had. I hope we have this trial again next year if nationals are again close. Maybe 2 judge/2 ring with splitting up people into groups like a regional??? We'll see, hard to think about that now when every single muscle in my body is still aching :)