If you squint hard I didn't actually miss my February post

The new and improved monthly update style continues for the month of February. Ok yes I know it’s March already but I had a February update ready to go for a while now. It was just in my head instead of on the blog. I’m always told it’s the thought that counts. Anyway Feb was kind of a fairly quiet month by way of agility. I have probably entered Spryte in as many shows as trials in a bid to make sure she knows all about the show ring stuff by the time we fly to the BC Nationals in the first week of March.

I am not a huge fan of the showring scene. For one it all feels less productive, purposeful to me than say training for agility. I’m sure it’s all perspective really but showing requires more prep just prior to the show and it’s all so subjective it really feels like much more of a gamble on a lottery than agility ever does. But it has its purpose for the breeders and as Spryte will be being bred from I guess it’s important that she demonstrates she’s a good example of the breed. Although whether or not the showring is the place to adequately prove that is a topic of hot debate.

So far from around five or six shows she’s picked up about three reserve challenges and one challenge award, so at least she is on her way towards her Champion title with regards to points. I’m glad that when she titles eventually she’ll have titles at both ends – including herding titles so I feel it gives a little more credence to the claim of good example of the breed. If I can get out of actually showing her I will and Robyn shows her for me. She showed Raven to most of her points. I am far more relaxed walking onto an agility course than into a showring and all I can put that down to is lack of experience in the showring. I don’t do it all the time and therefore never become immune to that nervous feeling. Also the feeling that I may just do something that possibly means the judge decides not to pick my dog. As I said it’s all so arbitrary and subjective that I find the whole scene puzzling at the best of times and downright bizarre at the worst of times. So we’ll keep entering shows (that don’t clash with agility trials) and hope that she’ll get there. She’s a nicely put together bitch (and I mean that in all senses of the word) and can move like a dream and judges who are not too pedantic about size should like her.

So February I did the Albany trip and in terms of the trial it wasn’t a roaring success, barely simmering really with only one pass from twelve runs it clearly wasn’t our weekend in that department. I wasn’t disappointed by many of my runs though so that was good – there’s a difference between not passing and having disastrous runs to show for it and not passing and being very happy with the runs just having one unlucky fault each time. Raven and Spryte had a few of those. Cypher just couldn’t seem to keep his bars up this weekend.

After that it was all very quiet till just this weekend gone. Friday February 27th was a games trial hosted by the Agility Committee raising funds for the 2010 Nationals. Had the three of them in everything and did quite well – Raven won Masters Snooker, came second in Masters Strategic Pairs with her usual partner Guirmere Nifty Lad and in Masters Gamblers she just knocked the second last bar in the gamble section on the way home. It was a shame as she probably would have won that one having done everything well and truly twice. But I was mostly pleased with how well she’s running and trying really hard for me. She still has five more chemo treatments to go.
Cypher came second in Excellent Snooker and did a really smooth run for me so very happy with that, he paired up with Lexi (Hotnote Electri Cute) for Masters Strat Pairs and they finished with a quallie and third place. Of course after making me run like a mad thing for 45 seconds in Excellent
Gamblers he knocked a bar in the gamble so we didn’t pass that one.

Spryte’s first run was a cracker and I was wrapt with her contacts in Novice Gamblers. She nailed two beautiful contacts on both the dogwalk and the aframe. Did everything I asked and ended up with a quallie and 4th place overall. There was a bit of a mix up with how the obstacles in the actual gamble were scored so unbeknownst to me I missed out on boosting her opening points by not doing any of the obstacles in the gamble. But I was extremely happy with that run. She then let her evil twin out to play and decided that she didn’t know what two on two off on the dogwalk meant anymore in Novice Snooker so we left that ring without finishing. No passes in Novice Strat Pairs as a bar came down and we had decided not to rescue.

So then we were at Saturday and this was another fundraising trial for the Nationals in 2010. Just a normal trial this time and I entered my guys in everything as a prep for next Saturday in Canberra when they will each be doing five runs that day at the BC Nationals. So after the games I was quite prepared to blow off the entries for all of Spryte’s runs in order to maintain criteria in the ring. After doing gamblers where they do contacts several times without reward it is difficult to get those contacts back for newer dogs. So inevitably in both Excellent Agility and Open Agility Spryte was carried out the ring in both due to her let’s try the whole four in the colour of the dogwalk thing and see if she lets me keep going. I didn’t. I walked straight up to her, picked her up off the dogwalk and withdrew from the ring. I then went and found a spare dogwalk plank and drilled her two on two off again. Never missed one. Excellent Jumping we passed and I thought that was our title but I can’t seem to find the cards – so maybe not. But she ended up with a quallie and third place overall after we had a slight glitch in our run where I had to bring her around me to line her up properly for a jump after she curved in on a line. Open Jumping she missed the distance challenge but I didn’t feel disappointed about that since there was only one quallie for the entire class and neither Raven nor Cypher got the distance challenge either.

Raven came second in Masters Agility and did a lovely run I was very pleased with her given the course was quite technical and challenging. There were only about five or six passes. Cypher managed to knock the very first bar. Nothing like a first bar down to deflate your sails. Of the two I would rather have the last bar down because at least then you know you have run the rest of the course perfectly. He did a lovely run in Masters jumping though finishing about 6th out of 12 or 14 qualifications and it was a run that felt nicely in sync so that was good. He had a bar down in Open Agility and missed the distance in Open Jumping. Raven also had one bar down in Open Agility (the same one!) and she had a handler problem in Masters Jumping – me being slack and there was no reason to be I just thought I could cut a corner that I clearly had no right cutting!

So that concluded our February trialling month. In other news 600 litre fishtanks overflow if you leave hoses running in them (tiny baby fish get to go for wild rides), seeing horror movies in 3D (My Bloody Valentine) almost negates the squeamish factor of seeing an eyeball stuck on the point of a pickaxe as it goes through some guys head and comes out the screen towards you and Joe Satriani’s Satch Boogie is a track that makes your fingers ache on Guitar Hero World Tour.
More importantly though – my Dad is a match for my Mum and he is going to be donating his left kidney to her in the near future. That was the news that has kinda made this long weekend one of the best in a long time.