Dog Agility Club of Ventura - January 29-30, 2005
by Kristi Cetrulo

It’s always nice when the trial is less than an hour from your front door. I am trying to fit in as many trials as I can before Gale has her puppies (and try to finish Patches’ MACH) and I am at home for months! Since I am writing this report about a month “after the fact” my memory is not all that good so it will be a short one!

Patches was amazing – she Double Q’d on Saturday and I thought it was DQ#18. When I went home that night, I made the mistake of checking on the AKC website – oops – DQ#19! Needless to say, I completely choked on her first run of the day on Sunday and made her drop a bar in JWW. Sigh….going for the MACH is a hair-raising adventure. We made up for it by having a smoking Std run so maybe next weekend.

The rest of the dogs were awesome! One quick aside: I was running Reveille for Terry Simons (he was really sick) so I was a teeny bit more frantic than normal. As the time came to run Kali in her Open Std I was completely unprepared and not ready for the run. Olga Chaiko (who owns Luz the BC) has always liked Kali (and the feeling is completely mutual) so at the last minute I asked Olga to run Kali for me. Poor Olga – she had about 2 dogs before Kali was on the line but she was a total trooper! Not only did she run Kali clean (for her Open Std. Preferred title) but she won the darn class. Way to go Olga and thanks!

Cinder was amazing all weekend – but definitely handler challenged. I realized that it has been over 2 months since I have trialed (since the ASCA Nationals) and it showed. My timing was horrendous but despite that she still Q’d in Ex B Std and took 4th. She is such a kind, forgiving little dog. Gale also suffered my lack of training and horrible timing but still managed to have a lovely Ex B Std run (picked up 17 MACH points – she was cooking) and her JWW runs were stellar. It was me that was having the issues.

Well, next weekend is Industry Hills – keep your fingers crossed for Patches!