Oy!

I meant to post a final update last Thursday on our CPE agility weekend because I knew that things were going to be busy this weekend with the AKC agility trial. I've been hemming and hawing and avoiding even looking at the blog because I knew that as soon as I did I would just feel overwhelmed and guilty. So what I've decided to do is give a pretty brief recap of the previous Sunday and this weekend (minus the course maps) in order to save my sanity and keep myself from further avoiding the blog.:)

Day 2 of the CPE trial went much better with Heffner qualifying in every single run! A feat that he had previously not accomplished.:) Bess was close behind qualifying in three out of four runs. It was a great weekend. We had a lot of fun and were pretty tired on Monday. The dogs and I actually took the night off from our usual cardio routine to rejuvenate ourselves and it was delicious being so lazy!

This past weekend I had the dogs entered in all three days of the AKC agility trial up in Ridgefield, WA. On Friday, only JWW and Standard were offered. Heffner qualified in both Open Standard and Novice JWW to finish his Novice JWW title. Bess had an okay day. Her JWW run actually wasn't all that bad except that a miss timed cross caused her to knock a bar. Automatic NQ. For her Standard run she was literally all over the place. Technically we ran the whole course, but we did it in chunks and incurred so many refusals that there was no way that we were going to qualify.

Saturday was a better day! FAST, JWW, and Standard were offered and I had both dogs entered in everything. Both dogs qualified in FAST. Heffner got his first Open FAST leg and Bess got her second Novice FAST leg. Due to a knocked bar on a rear cross that didn't quite work out, his Open JWW was an NQ. Bess Qed in her Novice JWW run to finish that title! Then in Standard, Heffner had a lovely run, completing his third leg for his Open Standard title!! That's right, we were moving up to Excellent for Sunday! Bess' class was at the end of the day and since we were running tall to small, I didn't stick around to see the results for how she did. She had a few sections that were almost zoomies, but otherwise did an okay job on the course. I had thought that we didn't Q, but found out on Sunday that she did in fact Q! Which meant that she qualified in everything that she ran!!

On Sunday only JWW and Standard were offered. Heffner was the first 24" dog in Excellent Standard, which made me a little nervous. I thought that he did a pretty good job all things considered! We did get a tunnel refusal, had to fix a weave pole entrance, and a bounce off the table (one of the not so great things about a CPE weekend right before an AKC weekend, combined with the fact that I don't really ever work the table in practice to differentiate!). Otherwise it was a good run.:) Bess' Standard run was at the tail end of the day and we were running small to tall to boot! She had her best run all weekend and Qed for her second Novice Standard run! In JWW neither dog qualified. Heffner had another knocked bar and Bess had a knocked bar combined with an off course where she took off tearing into the tunnel that was our last obstacle (and did this about half way through the course).

All together it was an excellent weekend and I was very proud of the dogs! On Sunday about mid way through the day it actually started snowing and sticking! There wasn't a ton of accumulation, but enough to make me a little nervous about what it was going to be like driving home. Thankfully once I got out of the Ridgefield area the snow turned into rain and there was no accumulation to be seen.

Today we had another snow warning where the whole area was freaking out and trying to figure out when to shut everything down. That's what happens when you live in an area that doesn't see much snow. The people in charge of taking care of the roads are usually always unprepared and often don't do anything until it's basically pointless. And then people freak out because they're not used to driving in those conditions and create havoc on the road ways. I prefer to keep a large bubble of space around myself to avoid other people getting out of control and in case I start to lose control.

But I digress! I know that the Seattle area got hit today. And as much as it buggers up the traffic around here, I was hoping for snow this evening. The snow would give me the perfect excuse to turn my evening run with the dogs into a play in the snow event where I don't have to feel guilty for not burning off the calories that I should be burning off and keeping myself and the dogs in prime condition. And since it looks like all precipitation has stopped, I'm REALLY not going to have any excuse not to take the dogs out for a run tonight.

Here's to fond thoughts of snow tonight! 'Cause I'm going to have to be at work tomorrow regardless, and the thought of snow makes me feel warm and fuzzy.:)