Last weekend we packed up and headed down to Buckner, Kentucky, a small suburb on the northeast side of Louisville. We arrived Thursday night and unloaded at the hotel and tried to get some sleep. Sleep was hard to come by, as for some reason both dogs were restless all night. All told, I think we managed 3-4 hours of sleep.
Friday (6/3/11) morning came bright and early and we headed out to the trial site to get set up and ready for our runs. Tully was entered in Excellent A Jumpers Preferred, Open Standard Preferred, and for the very first time, Novice FAST preferred. Our FAST run was first up and we lucked out with the send bonus being two jumps. If there is anything my boy can do at a distance, it's jumps. We mentally created our course and set out to accomplish it. He aced the send (woo hoo!) and we hurried to get in our points before time expired. Needless to say the course planned sometimes does not equal the course run when Tully decided to bail off the 8 point A-frame! Yikes! Quick thinking and utter panic somehow combined and we were able to still rack up 56 of the required 50 points at the end. This was good enough for 1st place and his first NFP leg! Go Tully!
We then waited for our standard and jumpers runs. Unfortunately, the two walk thrus and classes were at the same time in different rings which added to our stress. We did what we could and awaited our runs. His jumpers run was faultless, but over on time. His standard run was pretty much a disaster in the making. He wouldn't touch the teeter and had a couple of wrong courses and refusals. <sigh> So much for having slain the teeter monster. I was not in any way convincing him it was OK. Kentucky teeter monsters eat red cattle dogs.
Saturday (6/4) morning came way too early. Terra was along for the ride this weekend and apparently had a respiratory reaction to something in the motel room. We managed 2 hours of sleep while Terra wheezed, panted, and kept me awake with worry. (I will happily say her respiratory signs subsided at the show site where she snoozed peacefully all day.) We were only entered Friday and Saturday, so we packed up our stuff from the motel and headed back to the trial site. The FAST classes this morning consisted of an A-frame and jump in the send. I knew this would not be a good course for Tully as he does not like to do the A-frame from a distance. We tried the send bonus early on and when he refused the A-frame, we decided to spend our remaining time working on the teeter. As if he had not had any problems over the past 5 months, he magically did the teeter without a thought on the first try. I praised my boy for his good work and although we had an NQ on the run, I was delighted he did his teeter. The walk thrus for Excellent A jumpers and Open Standard were again at the same time. ACK! His Open Standard run was slow, but he ran much cleaner (1 off course) and did his teeter on the first try! We considered this a MAJOR victory! His excellent jumpers run was very slow. The hot weather, back to back runs, lack of sleep, and long weekend caught up with him. He had 1 refusal which gave us the NQ but his time would have NQ'd us too.
We were pleased to get our first Novice FAST Preferred leg and two successful teeters this weekend. The loud cheers of support from all our friends when Tully did his teeter in Open Standard meant the world to us. Dog show friends are the best. Overall, his times this weekend were very, very slow. I'm hoping it was due to stress, heat, lack of sleep, and back to back runs. I felt like he was "off" in his left front leg much of Sunday, although no limp was visible. When he bailed off the A-frame in FAST on Friday, the video replay shows him crashing down on the left shoulder pretty hard. He seems to be doing fine now, so hopefully it was just some bruises and sore muscles. Our next trial is in two weeks in Indianapolis and we'll see what we have there.
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