GRCI - October 3 - 5, 2008

I'm posting this a little late but it's been crazy busy lately.

First things first, River had his vet appointment on Friday, October 3rd. He weighs 16.6 lbs and is about 12" tall now at the shoulder. He's growing very well and just loves to visit everyone. A very happy boy at the vet's office. Not even a yelp when he got his shots. :)

Then onto our trial in Manhattan. We had a noon start time on Friday since it was Excellent only. FAST class was first, our little warm-up. I didn't really plan well and didn't really care but I would like Ruby to get her XF. We missed the third obstacle in the send portion again. That's four attempts now and we're messing up in the same spot, though I think if it wasn't the far side of a tunnel this time (a different obstacle) she would have gotten it. Maybe I should have taken Dana's distance workshop...

Standard went okay for the most part. Ruby took off way too early for a jump and knocked the bar. Pretty much just blasted through it with her chest. I don't know if it was the lighting in the building or her getting used to the footing in there. Then an off-course up the DW which was my fault because I didn't call her when she was IN the chute. Timing is everything...Jumpers went well but she seemed slow to me. We were clean and she placed 3rd.

Saturday & Sunday I only entered Standard and Jumpers so no more FAST until next month. Standard went pretty well on Saturday until three obstacles from the end. There was a pinwheel with a odd angled jump and an off-course triple facing it. Surprise, surprise, Ruby took that off-course triple backwards. I was thoroughly disgusted to have had a clean run going and blow it like that. She got a pretty tough weave entrance as well. Grrrrr!!!! The carnage continued for the rest of my height class with only one dog qualifying: Darby, my friend Julia's Dalmatian. A lovely run for her! I put Ruby up for auction briefly until after her Jumpers run when she redeemed herself and placed 4th.

Sunday was a rather cold and dreary day. I had to work most of the day and was working Excellent FAST when I should have been walking Excellent Standard. Somehow only walking the course three times seemed to work and she ran it beautifully taking 2nd place behind the Clever Dog. I was very proud of her! :) Jumpers was good for the most part but I didn't help her with a jump at a strange angle and she crashed right through it. I should have pushed on her line a bit more to shape her approach. Weird thing was when I walked the course (heck, I helped build that course) I couldn't figure out why something about that jump was bugging me. Now I know. She also somehow managed to jump the wing of a jump on that course and NOT knock it over. So we missed a QQ by inches. Ugh! 48 MACH points for the weekend though so not too shabby.

So as we stand now, she needs 4 more QQ's and 186 more MACH points to qualify for Nationals. We have 6 more trials before November 30 (this is assuming that we get into all of them - there's only one that I'm not sure about), that means 10, possibly 13 more attempts to get those QQ's and points. I'm not saying that we're going if she does qualify, I'd just like to have the option and be able to say that my little girl did it! :)

We have Rand Park this weekend at the SportZone and I'll update Ruby's blog next week.