September 14, 2000
PWCCA 2000 National
PWCCA
Thought I would change the
title of the Adventures email, just to fool all of you. : )
Just could not resist. When
you are standing on a field at 6am with a cup of coffee in one hand, lead/dog in
the other, and the sun still has yet to come up, the funniest things come to
mind. It takes me a day to figure out what to name these emails of mine and I
just could not come up with a title for this "go about".
Susie packed up her RV and we
headed out to Carlisle, Pa for the Annual Corgi National (PWCCA). Corgis, all
Corgis, and more Corgis. I am sick of looking at Corgis. The agility judge is
sick of resetting knocked bars.
I had the three boys to run, Harry, Fred, and Crumpet.
AKC
Standard (all the equipment)
Jumpers with Weaves (jumps, tunnels, weaves)
There are no placement ribbons for Non-Qualifiers (NQ) because it was dumb ol' AKC.
Level order is Novice (A, B), Open, Excellent A, Excellent B
NQs- Dropped bar (jumps). Jumped contact on the "heavy equipment". Exceeding Refusal limits.
Harry and Fred were entered in Novice B Jumpers & Standard.
Crumpie was entered in Excellent A Jumpers & Standard.
This meant I had 12 runs, 6 a day.
I have decided to deviate a bit
from my normal formatting of each run and just report on the fun stuff because that
was all this was. I will ruin it and let you guys know waaaaay before the end
of this email, that not ONE of these guys Qed.
There, now you can hit "delete".
I lied�..about the reporting part. Wish I could say we Qed.
Tuesday morning I knew there was
going to be no way Crumpie would Q. He was too revved up, to Beanheadish to
pull himself together. I was right. He takes down the third bar on the Standard
course. ARUGH!
Ok, I let him go. Be a
Beanhead. He does this spectacular "jump over the Frame contact" that everyone
just had to make noise over. He does his normal "twist his body into the
off-sided weaves" perfectly, and then we hit the dog walk.
Now, this has been something
that has been hampering us lately and so Joyce has decided enough is enough. If
he does not listen to my latest handling strategy, he is getting his butt picked
up and walked off-course.
So there we are. Crumpie goes
up the DW and Joyce stops running. "I would seriously SUGGEST making that
contact Mister," comes out of my mouth and Crumpie slows down dramatically.
Heck, he stopped and started to go into a sit, but I had caught up to him by
then. We walk to the end, but as we are starting the down side of the DW, a
woman outside of the ring yells out "You tell him, Sister". Crumpie makes the
contact.
Needless to say, despite my
laughing for the rest of the course, the ending was performed perfectly.
Harry and Fred both knock bars
for their Novice Standard runs, but stayed with me the whole time. Susie said
that one of her friends was standing with her when Harry was running and her
girlfriend commented that she now understood why Susie had someone else handle
him�..if that is what you can call it.
Personally, I call it "Panic Handling". You know, when you are issuing commands for obstacles 7 ahead. Or
is that called smart?
Crumpie had a beautiful
Jumpers run, but as he came off the Triple jump, I miscalculated the distance.
I called "out", he went out. By the time I called the "right" and he made the
turn, he was past the jump. Run by and an NQ.
The funniest part is that as
he was coming back to me, I could see he knew something was wrong. He looked
mortified and my heart sunk for him. That was when I realized I had not been
totally fair in my directions.
Crump, dude, it was MY
fault," I said to him. "I bailed out on you." (Yes, I know this dog is NOT
human, but you have to know him to understand that this dog really knows sentences.)
He is still coming back to me,
but the look on his face was awesome. It went from compete sorrow of
disappointing me to "OH so YOU'RE the Beanhead." In half a second we are back
on course and running full tilt like nothing ever happened. Of course what does he NOT do?
Hope you said, "knock a bar".
Harry was super awesome in
Jumpers, but he knocked a bar. Fred on the other hand had to find that yummy
tunnel��as I am calling his name.
FREEEEEEEEEEED. Freeeed.
Fred? Hey you, remember me?" After he came out of the tunnel and he realized I
was not there, he did look around for me��way on the other side of the ring. He
did remember who I was.
There was nothing really to
write home about Crumpie's Standard run on Wednesday�ummmm so I will make this
short. Knocked bar.
Harry does not remember his full course because he never made to the end.
Fred on the other hand was
having a blast, following along so he got to play "gamblers".
I realized as Fred was on the
DW that there was no way I was going to make it to the next 3 obstacles that
looped back. He was FLYING and I could not keep up. I am being serious. I
think he and Harry were talking while they were in their crates.
So, me being lazy me, called
the Tire as he came off the DW, then left, over, left, tip, wait. I had moved
all of three feet. "Go tunnel" and he was off and running and I stepped around
the tip and waited for Fred to return. Over, over, chute.
Perfectly done. Good doggie,
Fred. The crowd went wild�..because everyone loves Fred.
Freeeeed.
I love this dog.
Crumpie's Jumpers run. The
heart break of the two days. Clean run, run with every part of his little
doggie heart, one knocked bar. 4th fastest time of the course. (A & B) Let me
go and cry because I am still crying over Tuesday's run too.
Harry and Fred went wide for a
few of the turns, but they were in control and happy to be running. Knocked
bars.
The neatest thing is that when
the Agility Trial Secretary emailed me a few weeks ago asking for a thought
about a photographer, Tien Tran came out of my mouth�or in this case fingers.
Tien was brought in from California to photograph our four legged Corgi kids.
I am sitting under the tent
eating my lunch in when my girlfriend yells from the other side for me to come
over. Seems that there is this reeeeeeeally awesome photo of Crumpie in the
weave poles. Ok, I get up and as I get to where there are about ten 8x10s
posted, there is the Crump Dude staring at me from one of them.
This photo brought tears to my
eyes and still is doing so hours later. Tien managed to capture the "driven"
Crumpie with one click of a button on a camera; focused, calculating, and my
agility buddy. The Trial Secretary laughed when she saw Crumpie featured and
said she was soooooo glad I had suggested Tien.
You all know that this one is
going up on my little Crumpie website and Mike is sooooo ecstatic because it is
going up on the wall��with ALL of the others.
So that is it in a nutshell.
Susie and I are heading to Princeton this weekend, so I will be back on the road
come Friday night. Poor Mike. Does anyone know a good Cat Sport we can get him
and Trooper into?????
For those who know and care:
Dolores
Treffie NQed in all of his runs. Dolores is now part of the "knocked bar" society.
Mandi was pulled from Standard, but had the most fun in Jumpers. I love watching these two run. It
makes me smile because Mandi barks the whole way around except for when she is
in the air going over a jump. She was over course time, but at 10 years of age
Mandi has a blast.
Dolores' Harry Qed�yes Qed�..for one Standard and one Jumpers run. 3rd & 4th place. Go figure.
Agility is the best excuse to not have to go to work. : )
The Captain of Team Bean�.and the only one of the four that can type.
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Last Updated on April 21, 2007
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