COAST ASCA Agility Trial, Cayucos, CA
May 27-28, 2007

Lots of driving for me and the dogs this Memorial Day weekend, but how could I not do the COAST ASCA Trial? I love the site and my dogs pretty much grew up at the Warren Ranch so it’s always a fun, low-key, low stress trial. The only true complaint I have is the thickness of the grass which is truly ironic as there was no grass there at all several years ago! But seriously, the grass was SO thick and dense it made it really hard for both handlers and dogs to get moving quickly. And boy, was my rear end sore at the end of two days – I can only imagine what my dogs felt like!

An acquaintance of mine had seriously broken her leg and asked me to run her dog, Balu, on Saturday. He only needed two standard legs and two gamble legs for his ATCH. I warned her that I suck at gambles but was willing to try and help her out. The first run of the day was Elite Gamblers and Balu was the first dog on the line for the class. Now, I ran Balu once in Jumpers a couple years ago but not since. I planned a fairly simple opening so we could “get to know each other” and things seemed to go wrong right from the beginning. He nailed his weave entry but the poles were slapping him in the face (at the time I thought “weird” but just continued on.) Then he got on the teeter and bailed off with a panicked look on his face. Of course, the whistle blew right then but we had no chance of getting the gamble: his confidence in me was shot.

As we were leaving the ring, I noticed a bunch of ring crew running out to stake down the teeter and the poles – the equipment hadn’t been staked!!!! No wonder we had those incidents in the opening! I normally do not ask for re-runs but I didn’t think this was fair at all so went hustling up to the judge and pointed out the equipment failures and asked for a re-run. He gave it to us and I am glad he did! Balu got the gamble and won the class! Balu and I started working as a team after that and he picked up two standard legs (with blues) and then the final gamble (ATCH Pressure….) was upon us. Let me say Balu was wonderful and he would have gotten his ATCH if I wasn’t a moron – I stepped on the line L Oh well, at least I got him ¾ of the way towards his ATCH!

Chancie was good boy and won his first Elite Standard round. We had bobbles in the rest of the courses – and Open Gamblers was a disaster. I really need to work more on my gambling skills. He also had a very difficult time on Sunday (where we ran 4 rounds of Jumpers) and pulled a bar on every course. Everything else was lovely but he couldn’t seem to keep the bars up. I think the deep grass was really hard on him. His handling was lovely – I did some things with him that I can’t do with anyone but Cinder and he read my cues like a big dog so I was quite pleased with the runs. The deep grass wasn’t his fault. J

Patches was on fire and not necessarily in a good way. She leaped all her contacts and went off course on every standard run on Saturday. She made up for it on Sunday by Q’ing in two Veteran Elite Jumpers classes with a 1 st and 2 nd. I think she was tired – 3 days of showing in a row with lots of runs each day is hard on an old dog.

Gale was terrific! She finished her Elite Gamblers title on Sunday and then Q’d in 3 out of 4 Elite Jumpers classes on Sunday! Yay Gale! Cinder was her usual magnificent self. On Saturday She Q’d in all three Elite Regular classes (with 1 st places) and then got another Elite Gamble leg! Yay Binder! On Sunday she went 3 for 4 in Elite Jumpers (again with all 1 st places) but she dropped a bar in the last run. I think she was tired too. I might have to re-think next Memorial Day weekend.

Overall the show was a success but especially for Cinder and Balu. Hopefully next week in PASA we can finish Chancie’s Elite Standard title and his Elite Jumpers title! Wish us luck!