Adelaide...the first weekend

I actually wrote the below post in Adelaide on the laptop but couldn't log in to blogger to load it so here it is now....

We arrived in Adelaide on the Friday the 27th to a brisk wind but no rain, though apparently it had poured the day before and was scheduled to pour for the weekend. Come Saturday they were right it was one of the wettest trials I have ever been to. Games was first up in the morning and we discovered the difference in weaving equipment. In South Australia they use broomstick type wood, painted and with a spike you stick in the ground. They could be pushed aside fairly easily however they stayed pushed apart and if you were the next dog in and you didn’t get them straightened they ended up crooked for your dog. In Excellent Snooker Raven and I were going for the Super 7, the weavers were worth 7 points. She popped out the last two on our first way through so I gave up on the Super 7 after that and just worked her contacts and getting a set of weavers done properly. She has no problems with their contact equipment. Cypher was up next in the Novice Snooker and I decided to do the dogwalk twice and one set of weavers. We were going great having done one set of weaves and one dogwalk heading back round for our last red jump he ended up taking two red jumps in a row so we went to the closing sequence.

By the stage I was starting to feel a little chill having been wet to the skin for a bit by now by the rain. We had Excellent Gamblers next and Cypher was in that first, he did really well and we discovered just how much he pushes weavers apart as we went back for our second go of them he’d pushed them so far apart he just couldn’t get back into his weave rhythm. We moved off them quickly and started racking up our points elsewhere, Whistle blew and we moved to the gamble which was fairly simple. Unfortunately Cypher had a vague moment and decided to do the wrong end of the bendy tunnel, twice! So of course we ran out of time. Next up was Raven and she ran very well with two small glitches (had to re enter the weaves) I pulled her off a broad jump. We ended up with 61 pints and second place behind her pairs partner Nifty with Sue. So I was very pleased with this run.

It was onto the afternoon trial. The Masters Agility course was complicated but definitely doable. Cypher jumped one jump from the wrong side but other than that did a nice run. I was on the completely wrong side of the dogwalk for Raven and she ended up with an off course. Open Jumping Cypher ran clear and for all the other runs that afternoon in Open Agility, Masters Jumping, and Open Jumping with Raven we managed to have at least one error. I wasn’t concerned Raven had run very well for me only knocking a bar in the last very wet Masters Jumping run of the day. Cypher got a refusal on a bar that had blown down in Open Agility. Raven had missed the distance challenge due to my lacklustre handling. In Masters Jumping I scratched Cypher, it was just too wet for me to get enthusiastic enough abut running him for his last run of the day. Raven had an off course in Open Jumping due to my less than intelligent decision to do a running start with her. Mental note to self *always* lead out at least one jump! I didn’t stay for presentations as I was soaked through (didn’t have a change of dry clothes with me), was very tired and hungry as I hadn’t eaten all day. I know WA had a couple of wins though with Andrea’s NZ Heading Dog ‘Smudge’ and Sue’s Nifty.

We hoped the next day would be a little drier and for most of the day that hope was upheld. I was very pleased with my morning runs. Cypher was up first in Masters Agility and now that we just needed one more leg I turned this run into more of a babysitting run, staying on him all the time and never shutting up. I over handled him massively but we made it through clear for his title! 12 months from Novice to Masters I was thrilled with him and knew I would be much more relaxed for his runs for the rest of our trip. Next up was Raven in Masters Agility and I was very pleased with how I handled the course and she ran extremely well with one tiny glitch on exit from a bendy tunnel, for some reason Raven decided she could run the tunnel on the side however the exit appeared closer than she expected and she ended up face planting into the dirt coming to a dead stop. This cost us a couple of seconds at least and she ended up in 2nd place by point 8 of a second. I was very proud of how we ran together though. Next was Open Jumping and Cypher just hit those weave poles too fast, he did check but not enough and got in the first entry but bounced out past the next two poles. Raven ran it clear for a very respectable third place. I think this was behind Kellie (Greg Collin’s Koolie X) and Nifty. In Open Agility she also ran clear for 3rd place behind Jack (Allan Schmidt’s BC) and Nifty in 1st^t place. I was very pleased and didn’t care what happened in terms of our runs for the rest of the day. As it turned out I only got 4 of my 8 runs done. In Masters Agility Raven left her seesaw early and then mis strided the dogwalk, other than this she had one of the top three times so I was pleased with her run. Ran Cypher next in Masters Agility and now totally relaxed I just ran it the way I thought it should no baby sitting weavers or talking to him a lot, we ran clear for a very smooth course. I then ran Raven in Open Jumping and she did another cracker of a run, we had a really wide turn out of one of the tunnels which cost us so she ended up in equal 5th place with one of the New Zealand dogs. Other than that it was a picture perfect run. She was then in Masters Jumping. As we lined up for the start it started to piss down with rain, the judge had her wet gear on already so she signalled she was ready and I thought may as well, it looked like the rain was setting in. It was a simple jump jump, right turn into bendy tunnel, I led out did the cross commanded tunnel and then wondered where she was as no dog was coming out the tunnel and the judge yelled refusal. I looked around and there was Raven she had come with me! Oh well I went to put her back in the tunnel intending on using the jump work and as I turned my foot hit a dip and my right ankle rolled. Grrrrrrr!!!! I immediately went and applied ice and elevated it and got Danni to scratch me from the rest of my runs for the day. It didn’t feel as bad as when I had done it three years ago but I wasn’t taking any chances. Turns out (when I went to Physio Monday) that I only sprained a small area of my ligament and my ice treatment along with taking anti- inflammatories and applying gel had helped immediately lessen the effect. I’ve had a couple of sessions of physio treatment and I will be heavily strapped up but I will still get to run this weekend thank goodness!!! Stay tuned for the next update (probably not till we’re back in Perth next week now!)