SANTA MARIA KENNEL CLUB - June 11-12, 2005 - Judge: Larry Brockett

I have bad news and then lots of good news. When I thought Patches had finished her MACH at the February trial, I was wrong. She was 8 points short! And Gale WAS pregnant so Betty and I just had to wait through the engaging and exhausting process of raising a litter of 8 wonderful pups before trying to finish Patch up. This was our first show since the beginning of February and we (the dogs and I) were all a little rusty. The beginning of the good news is that this was a small trial – the first one put on by this particular club – and it was managed WONDERFULLY. Larry Brockett designed some of the nicest AKC courses I have seen in a long time and the show committee was helpful, friendly and really kept the trial going. I sincerely hope they hold more trials in the future as this was a blast! Now on to the details!

First, Patches. I must say that this dog is one of the best I have ever dealt with. She always tries 100% for me and this weekend was no exception. She went out on her first run and finished her MACH with a run that was over 14 seconds under SCT. YAY PATCHES!!!!!!!!!!! She also took 4th in the class. That was just the beginning for good old Patches.

That darn dog qualified EVERY time I put her in the ring, with placements in each class. She ended up the weekend with two more Double-Q’s, a 4th, a 3rd and two 2nd places! So now I can legitimately say – CONGRATS to MACH Indian Run Apache Dancer!

Gale and I had an interesting weekend J She came back sooooo excited that I had a difficult time adjusting to her increased speed. She also decided (once again) that she didn’t know how to weave…but she did hit all her A-Frame contacts! Our only bobbles were the missed weave entrances so despite the fact that there were no Q’s in our destiny this weekend, I was terribly pleased with her enthusiasm and speed. Even with the no Q’s, she still took 3rd in Ex B Std and 5th in Ex B JWW! Go Gale!

Kali has been working her way back up through the Preferred Classes and finished her Open JWW Pref title on Sat with a 1st place. She was having so much fun: barking and breaking her start! Bad Kali…but I am glad she is excited to be doing it. I moved her up to Ex A JWW-P (she is already in Ex A Std-P) for Sunday and she got her first JWW leg (with another 1st!) Our Standard runs were iffy. On Sat. she had a GREAT run going and then one of her absolute favorite people in the world walked directly by her while she was on the table. You owe me an entry fee Brusca! Sunday’s standard run was entirely too enthusiastic J But she had fun!

Cinder was tremendous this weekend. You have to remember I had spent the last 3 months doing NO agility at all. Our Standard run on Sat was lovely – she held all her contacts – and while she was screamingly (literally) excited, she was very responsive and Q’d with a 2nd place. Her JWW run was also hair-raisingly fast and I sent her off-course. Sunday’s standard was a repeat of Saturday’s except this time she won the class! And then she won JWW for Double Q #7! What a gal!

On a side note – I got talked into running a dog named Bubbles for this trial. Bubbles is a lovely dog who really doesn’t like agility much but her owner (an elderly, physically handicapped lady) lives for it. Bubbles – being the sweet dog that she is – tolerates the various handlers and reacts to the stress by lollygagging along and/or stopping to roll in the collapsed tunnel. To make a long story short – Bubbles was awesome for me. She is in Ex B Preferred for both classes and I Q’d her 3 out of 4 times. But it was more work to run Bubbles than all the rest of the beasties combined! But her owner was thrilled and Bubbles was thrilled with all the chicken I gave her so she wasn’t unhappy at all by the end of the weekend!

So – quite a return to the show ring! Let’s hope the next couple of shows go as well! Oh, this was also Sizzle’s first show (my new puppy out of Gale and Sid) and she handled it like a pro! Except for when I was running dogs: I think I am in trouble with this one. She already wants to DO so much! Keep your fingers crossed!