Southern Cal Port. Water Dog Club - Industry Hills Februrary 5- 6, 2005

Nancy, Chance’s owner, talked me into going to this show. I am SO glad I went and all the dogs had a great time. I was pretty sure Gale was pregnant at this point (her ultrasound was the following week) so I really wanted to get a last show in and try to finish the MACH on Patches. So, here we go….

Patches and I had a lovely JWW run on Saturday morning. I spent the rest of the day with my stomach completely tied in knots over “DQ#20” and finishing her MACH. I literally could not focus on much of anything else – it was awful. I was completely obsessed and kept running the Std course in my head over and over (and over and over.) Unfortunately, my other Excellent dogs suffered for my lack of attention. I sent Gale off course in JWW (and she was doing so wonderful) but somehow managed to get Cinder around clean for a Q and 3rd place. I am still not sure how: I was mentally running Patches’ standard run all day.

The fateful standard run arrived. I ran Kali first (in Ex A Pref) and promptly sent her off course. Not a good beginning. Then I ran Cinder, had a perfect run until I took the last jump for granted and she ran around it! I blew a DQ on Cinder – it hurt. Then came Patches’ turn and I completely choked again. I pansied out at the weave entrance and incurred a refusal: MACH hopes down the drain. We did go on to have a stellar run but it hurt.

I still had Kali in Open Pref JWW and Chance to run in both of his Novice courses. Thank heavens the MACH jitters were out of the way (for Saturday at least) and Kali had a smoking JWW run and won her class while Chance had a lovely JWW run, got his 2nd leg and took 2nd place! He was lovely – a little scary because he gets so wound up, but so much fun to run. His Std run was full of tiny little mistakes: he looked for his mom on the start and pulled the first bar and then he would NOT sit on the table. I did the “please, please, sit up dance” for what seemed like forever and I think Chancie got worried – as Aussies will do – and he left the ring and ran to Mom. We are going to have to work on that!

Sunday dawned beautifully. Nancy and I had run the dogs the night before to try and wind down and I was ready for the day. I was much more relaxed about the MACH, figuring that if Patch and I had gotten 19 DQ’s, one more wasn’t going to be that hard, even if it didn’t happen at this show. I guess my attitude really helped: I ran Ex B JWW first and qualified Patches, Gale and Cinder (who took 2nd!) I didn’t obsess at all about the standard run, went out with Kali and qualified her in Ex A Std Pref with a 1st place and then DQ’d Cinder! Yay Cin! I sent Gale off course or she would have DQ’d as well. Life was going well. I went out on the line with Patches, ran like I always do, until the final 4 obstacles which were a tunnel and three jumps. Right at that point the thought struck me of “Oh my God, she is going to do it!” and my voice climbed several octaves. Bless Patches’ heart for keeping those bars up despite my panic at the very end. But we did it – the long MACH hunt is over. YAY MACH PATCHES!!!!!!

To add to the delirium, Chance went out and Qualified and won his Novice Standard class. He was lovely – stuck all his contacts, his weaves are DYNAMITE and it was down on the table. Thank heavens.

One little side note – I ran Cinder last in the Std class and never got a chance to walk the ISC JWW course. As I walked off the Std course, I realized that not only did I NOT walk the course (which was tricky) but also that Cinder was on the line in about 3 dogs. Thankfully Stephanie Spyr graciously agreed to run Cinder and did a wonderful job! Qualified her with a lovely run. Thanks Steph!

All in all, the weekend was a grand way to begin my trialing vacation: a DQ on Cinder, lots of ribbons for all the other dogs and MACH Patches! That victory lap sure was sweet!