We just finished a crazy but worthwhile NADAC weekend. How crazy was it? Here’s the short version:
- I get totally lost on the way to the trial
- Jayda got carsick from me driving around in circles
- Missed Bryce’s first run, get there just in time to walk Jayda’s course. Jayda starts well but heads for the ring gates 2 jumps from the end. (I got her back but we were way over time). She gets a 4th place ribbon for the effort.
- An over-enthusiastic Bryce blows a Chances run
- Bryce and I have an amazing, if exhausting double shot of Touch N Go, finishing his TG-N with 1 leg to spare with 2 first place runs – 2 back-to-back runs of a 188 yard course!!!!
- We leave. On the way home while driving on the turnpike a (big!) bird flies into my windshield
(no damage, except to the poor bird)! - Day #2 begins with a wrong course on an otherwise very nice Regular course.
- We mess up a Jumpers run and a Chances run.
- Jayda starts another jumpers course nicely… until we reach a sequence of jumps headed towards the ring gates, where she kept going.This is a new one for me – a stressed Sally meant circling, spinning, or offering obstacles; a stressed Bryce goes hunting for edible micro-garbage on the ground. Stressed Jayda leaves! She didn’t show any sign of looking BACK to the ring gates while heading away from them, but sequences heading towards them are something we definitely need to address.
- Bryce runs tunnelers and Q’s to finish his TN-E despite a brief stop to sniff goose-poop.
- Jayda runs tunnelers and finishes the whole course without leaving the ring! Of course, I didn’t give her much of a chance to leave – I was right on top of her the whole time. She doesn’t like that – it slowed her down and made her spin inside a tunnel, but it kept her on course. She finished 3rd, just over course time.
All in all, a rather strange, but pretty decent trial weekend. The weather was beautiful (if a little cold) and it was a great day to be out with the dogs. Here’s a picture of “baby” Jayda with her first ribbons!
… and Bryce “The Man” with his ribbon collection (and his duck) …
