Contact Point - USDAA DAM only Trial
February, 2008

This was my first trial since mid-December and the morning was a fairly surreal start.  This groggy “am I really showing?” feeling.  Cinder is still out, we have at least another month of rehab before she is ready to run again so I was just showing Gale and Patches in Performance Versatility Pairs.  Gale was teamed up with her brother Finn and Patch was teamed with a lovely young lab named Crash owned by Peggi Bean.  (That team was called The Young and The Senile which I thought was quite a fun name.  But then, I am a little twisted.)

The day started with Gamblers and the timer was off for the close so while a bunch of us “thought” we’d gotten over the bar in time, we were sadly disappointed when we went to check results.  While this really irritated me for about 15 minutes (it doesn’t help that I really don’t like showing at this site in the first place) I soon realized that the timing glitch had screwed ALL of us in Performance so it was probably a wash.  This was also a REALLY small trial so there was lots of concern as to how many teams would actually Q.  (When I say small, I mean small:  17 Championship Teams and 16 Performance Teams.  Teeny tiny trial.)

Jumpers was an interesting course and both Gale and Patch got around (Patch was clean and Gale had one bar and one refusal) but Finn went off course.  This did not improve my mood any but I kept consoling myself with the fact that Finn had won Gamblers.  (Let me just say right now that baby dog Crash was LOVELY all day and never put a paw wrong.  And Peggi thought Patches would have to carry the team!  Bah!!  I think Crash did the carrying of the old dog!)

Standard was not a pretty course.  Patches had a lovely clean run and Gale was slow, but clean.  Finn was dynamite and won the class!  Yay Finn.  Team Snooker was definitely a challenge.  Most people (including myself) went for 3 fours.  Some brave souls did 2 fours and a six.  The few folks I saw going for more points (aka “getting greedy”) crashed and burned.  Finn won, Gale took 2nd and we had hopes that the team might actually Q.  We had been right at the cut-off before Snooker.  Patches dropped a bar on the #4 in the opening but did make it through the close and Crash was perfect all the way through.  After Snooker, The Old and The Senile was in 4th place and The Santa Barbarians (Gale and Finn) were in 7th.  At that point, the cut off was 11 teams for Q’ing so we knew we just had to run halfway decent in relay to get our Q.

Finn had a lovely opening but got a refusal at a jump (I think he had a “Where’s mommy?” moment) but Gale was DYNAMITE – faster than she’d been all day with a lovely frame.  Good girl Gale!  Crash was perfect in her opening and Patches and I took off for the last run of the day.  Interesting thing happened to me on that run:  we came off the frame, over a jump and I signaled the tunnel.  Patches headed for it, then refused it (when does she EVER refuse tunnels?) and the second she pulled back, my foot cramped.  Not the other way around (foot cramp then refusal) but refusal – OW!  I re-sent and finished the final four jumps hobbling along and she is such a seasoned campaigner she ignored the gimp at her side. 

The main goal of this show was to get the dogs qualified for team at Nationals and that we did.  The bonus was that Patches and Crash took 3rd place overall and Finn and Gale took 4th!   Yay Beasties!!!!