My blog has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 5 seconds. If not, visit
http://furrariaussies.com/blog/
and update your bookmarks.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

AKC Nationals Continued





Saturday was the start of the Nationals runs which counted for getting into finals. Jeff helped a lot by bringing Enzo and Tooney back and forth from the trailer. They seem to get better rest in the trailer vs crated at the site. Standard was first. When Jeff brought Tooney, he said she pulled all the way to the barn like she knew exactly where she was going. She's such a smart girl. I could tell she was ready to go because she was actually excited about doing the practice jump and tugging. Normally she thinks the practice jump is pointless.

The standard course had some tricky spots but looked quite doable for me and my dogs.
Round 1 Standard Course Map

Tooney had the run of her life in this round! She ran her little fluffy butt off. Probably the fastest run she's ever had! She was awesome!

Enzo also had a really good run but unfortunately he crashed the double jump near the end of the run. It almost seemed like he didn't see the jump or didn't notice it was a double until the last second :( After his run I asked Jeff what his time was and Tooney actually beat his time by about .6 seconds! The fluffy girl really was fast! She's never beat Enzo by that much when he's had a smooth run. Tooney ended up placing 14th in Standard.

In round 2 JWW, there were some tricky spots. A weird push from jump 4 to 5, and then the ending had some difficult lines.
Round 2 JWW Course Map
Tooney ran clean and reasonably fast. With Enzo I was worried about getting the front cross between jumps 12 and 13 but I decided to go for it and at least try since this was his best chance at getting into challengers. Unfortunately I couldn't get there and aborted at the last second but not soon enough and he took the off course jump. Tooney placed a lot lower in this round but her cumulative score still had her in 14th place. Since they were taking 13 into the finals this was a pretty good place to be in after two rounds.

Sunday morning was the Hybrid round. It was an easier course than the previous days but it was a course that people handled in a lot of different ways which is always fun. I decided to wrap to the right on jump 3, rear crossed the triple, and then did a serp from 14-16 and wrapped around the outside of 16. I decided it would be better to let my dogs stay on the same lead instead of the shorter path of bringing them between 15 and 16. Not really sure which way is faster...
Hybrid Round 3 Course Map

Enzo ran first and was clean. He was amped up and it was a wild ride. He was really fast but was skidding out in some places and had a few wide turns. The worst was probably between jumps 2 and 3 and then going from the triple to the weave poles. He ended up placing 22nd. Placed above quite a few dogs that were in the finals. I think you can hear when he barks at me in the video too. He rarely does that.

Tooney ran towards the end and was clean. Watch her aframe in the video. Crazy, she landed way low in the yellow. After her run she was in 11th but we still had to wait for 40 or so more dogs to go. She dropped down to 13th and we just had to wait for the results to be finalized. Hung around for a while and then finally figured out where the finals running order was posted. Hooray Tooney was in!!! Couldn't believe that she actually made it. There was so much competition in the 16" class this year. She actually only beat the 14th place dog by 0.02 Seconds!

The whole getting our shirts for finals was an experience. They wanted to make sure that everyone got a shirt that they could fit into so they allocated a certain number of each size for all the jump heights. They brought each jump height into a room, lined everyone up and then told you what size you were getting and to try it on. Luckily I got a small. The whole thing was strange and elementary schoolish. and it took forever!

After getting my shirt I went back to the trailer to get something to eat. By the time I went back they were just starting the small dog walkthrough! Ack! I had already studied the course and had a plan luckily. The course was pretty straightforward and probably the easiest of the weekend. I just knew that I really had to watch Tooney in all of the front crosses to make sure she didn't run behind me to take an off course obstacle. I actually wasn't nervous and was just thrilled to make it there. Making finals at AKC nationals was the last goal that I had for Tooney that we hadn't achieved so it felt great.

Finals Course Map

She had a great run. Awesome contacts. Somewhere along the line she developed this great teeter and I never really noticed until this weekend! I did have to fight to get her in on the front crosses like I thought but we got through clean! Lost some time in the turn from 15 to 16 because she looked at the dogwalk. Probably my positioning could have been better too but I wanted to make sure I was in a place where I could get in her face. After everyone ran, we ended up in 7th place! Got a nice ribbon and a sash. Here's the picture that I had jeff take with my right right before we jumped in the truck and got on the road.


Here's her finals video:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congrats Jen - what a fantastic memory for all time, and with such a special girl too. Good for you!

Kat (Michigan)