Since we don’t HAVE to do the latter until Wednesday, we opted for the agility – an indoor day of CPE on Saturday and an outdoor day of NADAC on Sunday .

We went into Saturday hoping for Standard, Jumpers and Wildcard legs for Bryce. I don’t know what it was – maybe because I was uncentered because the whole feng shui of my household if “off” without Jasmine, but my first jumpers run with Bryce was easily some of the WORST handling I’ve done in years! Somehow, he qualified, no thanks to me – it was bad. Bad as in “I’m really glad nobody was taping this” kind of bad.

Our standard run started well but ended quickly when he slipped off the side of the seesaw 5 obstacles in. Stupid, freak thing to happen. I was relieved that he didn’t get hurt – he actually seemed to be running even BETTER in his remaining runs. Why did it happen? Who knows – maybe his dain-bramaged handler did something weird again … or maybe his foot just caught a slippery spot. Anyway, he got a Wildcard Q and one in Colors so 3 out of 4, (but we NEEDED that standard Q .)

Jayda was Jayda, cranking out 5 q’s, finishing her first Level 4 title (CL4-H), and making it look easy. The highlight of the day was when she made a 90 degree entrance from a double jump into a set 12 weave poles (and completed the poles) like it was nothing. When she’s “on”, she’s good.

Which brings us to Sunday – our first outdoor trial of the year. I’d prayed to the Agility Gods for dry weather and got it. Unfortunately, I forgot to request a side-order of No Wind. How windy was it? The judge had a special 2nd briefing mid-morning to discuss it and later pulled the dogwalk from the Chances courses. Big 30-35 mph gusts, things blowing around all over the place, nasty stuff.

Here are a couple of pictures of the windswept Miss Raven:

No way I would have let that little featherweight up on the dogwalk in that wind!

Bryce got out of the car and went “We’re outdoors and it’s really windy – WOOHOO!!!” Raven got out of the car and went “We’re outdoors and it’s really windy – WOOOHOO!!!”. Jayda got out of the car and went “We’re outdoors and it’s really windy – AW ****!!!”

Did I mention Jayda is major-freaked-out by wind? So as luck would have it, Jayda, Ms Q of the day before, had major meltdowns in both her runs.

Bryce had a great time in regular but took a wrong-course tunnel on a tunnel-dw discrimination (maybe I was conflicted about sending him onto the dw under the conditions, but it was a tough angle and they were really close too). I was happy to see him running nice and extended – he looked pretty darned good. Another NQ for him in Chances (Note to self: running him as a skilled vet his takeoffs and landings are VERY different which totally changes the “best” strategy for his distance work).

We finally managed to eke out a Q in Hoopers – NOT Bryce’s favorite class, to say the least. He started all happy and enthusiastic … then he realized what it was, ran it dutifully, but it was obvious that he doesn’t see the point of those silly hoops. It’s funny – most of NADAC is so motivating but leave it to them to come up with a game Bryce hates even more than that other NADAC classic (and Brycey un-favorite), Weavers.

Sunday’s big smile of the day was thanks to Raven. Since nobody was using them, I took her over to play a little with the practice jump/weaves between classes and she TOTALLY took me by surprise by doing a beautiful “sheltie bounce” through a set of straight poles – several times! She’s made her way through straight poles before, but this is the first time she’s ever done it with the speed and footwork I want.

In my experience, those breakthroughs usually come in the living room or the back yard or in class or someplace else cozy and familiar. Here we are – brand new place, super-distracting sounds and visuals, scary stuff blowing around and just yards from the food truck to boot and she goes hopping through straight weaves for the first time like she’s been doing it all her life? What the??? Sometimes I just have to look at this funny little dog and ask “who ARE you???!!!”