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 :).