This past weekend was “supposed” to be the weekend Bryce finished his C-ATCH. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans!

Saturday was hot and sunny but otherwise OK. Bryce qualified in standard with a nice run. He seemed happy despite the heat, ran well and was over-the-top pleased with himself afterwards, judging from the way he was bouncing around :). So we left Saturday all psyched to get the other 2 Q’s we needed on Sunday – they were saying rain, but not until later in the day. Our classes would run in the morning.

“Later in the day” turned out to be 7:30 AM and it rained hard and steadily throughout the morning, letting up briefly a few times only to start pouring again. We made a valiant attempt at Jackpot – it wasn’t raining too badly as we walked to the line … then about 3 obstacles in, the SKIES opened up on us! Poor Bryce kept going until I had second thoughts about sending him across the dogwalk in that downpour, which made him realize that oh gee I’m getting WET and stop to shake out his fur, which wasted some time and left us 2 points short. Damn!

It wouldn’t have happened anyway because the trial was CANCELLED before our standard run because of the weather! There was thunder, there was lightening, there was torrential rain, there were threats of a tornado. They weren’t kidding – I left just a few minutes before this microburst came through! Nobody was hurt, but scary stuff!

Now for the surprise.

Raven was scheduled for her first-ever run on Sunday early in the morning in Jumpers. Raven who hates rain. Raven who’s such a Sheltie Princess that she won’t leave the porch to pee in the rain and tiptoes around every puddle she sees lest her dainty little tootsies get wet. It wasn’t shaping up to be an auspicious debut.

But the rain slowed to a drizzle, the footing looked safe and I decided to give it a try – she was playing tug with me a little in the parking lot and seemed eager enough to bounce over the practice jump a couple of times. So I brought her in (carrying her over the deepest puddles at the gate), fully expecting this to be over with very quickly.

Darned if she didn’t go out there, cool as a cucumber, run the entire course and QUALIFY! First of my dogs EVER to Q their first time in an agility competition!! It wasn’t perfect – we had a little miscommunication towards the end – but all in all she did a fantastic job for her first time out and I couldn’t have been happier with her.

And she was prancing along in the rain, tail up, playing with her “ratty” again all the way back to the car. Hmmm – sound like a certain uncle of hers?

Sorry, no video – did I mention it was raining? But here’s “Q-bot Junior” posing (in my yard Monday when it wasn’t raining) with her very first ribbons :).

Today is Bryce’s 11th birthday! Last year I wasn’t sure we’d ever see this day, but knock on wood, he’s doing quite well. He’s been on melphalan/prednisone since January – as of his last bloodwork his numbers were still improving and his proteins were almost all within normal range. Don’t know how long the good news will last, we’ll party while we can!

And, as you can see, he still bounces .

(notice at the end of the video – the infamous and ever-present “yucky ducky” in the upper left hand corner)

I know people have been dying to see the babydog work, so here she is!

Still very much a work-in-progress, but isn’t she just too cute ?

Comments:

• This was only about her 3rd time EVER doing 12 straight poles – she’s been OK on 6 for a while, she’s been doing 12 slightly tilted. Little problem anticipating the end, but otherwise pretty nice, huh? She’s about 75% on getting the entrance on the first try.
• Yes, it was poor judgement to run on the far side of the blue tunnel – I’m still learning when I can and can’t outrun her! She also pulls easier than she pushes at this point.
• Weird offside arm at the jump before the chute probably has you thinking “WTF?????” I PLANNED to cross in front there, realized last minute no way! Again, a timing/teamwork issue. (The chute itself will be our summer project.)
• Dogwalk could be faster, but gotta love that contact ! She’s very consistent about stopping in her 2o2o.
• I’ve decided that the reason JAYDA and I are such a good team is that we’re both kinda klutzy !!!

I didn’t want to say anything until I verified it with CPE, but this is a very, very special ribbon …

With this Wildcard run, Bryce has 40 Q’s in level 5 with 5 out of 7 classes complete. If I were to transfer his points to the Specialist division, he would go on record as having earned a CS-ATCH! No fanfare, no celebration, but he would have the award and an agility championship title.

Since we’re only 3 Q’s away from the “real” C-ATCH, of course we’re going for it…

I want my victory lap.
I want my pretty ribbon.
I want my jump bar

And last but not least …

I want my CAKE!!!

(But under the circumstances, having this “insurance” feels really good!)

Bryce also got 2 standard Q’s and 1 Jackpot Q at this same trial. He needs to do exactly that just one more time. Hoping the weather cooperates, he doesn’t “do” summer and it’s a long time before any trials where we can count on having cooler temperatures.

At the same trial (SCOR CPE, the last weekend in May), Jayda finished her CL4-S, got a 1st place her first time in Level 5 Standard, and Q’d in her other 4 runs (level 4 and level 5) too. She finished level 3 the end of February and now she’s just 3 Q’s away from wrapping up level 4! All in all, a very productive weekend :).

The photos from our last trial are online – very difficult to find a particular dog in that layout, so I did the work for you :).

Portraits of Raven


Jayda …

Jayda …

… and more Jayda!

And in case you haven’t seen enough, more of her here and here. (I told ya he liked Jayda!)

There are some photos of Bryce in the albums but none that I liked. A few good shots of Jayda though, and a couple of the Raven portraits are cute.