Days 11 and 12

Day 11

Hit the Liberty Bell trial. I think I over entered poor Dekka.. 3 agility runs, 2 rally runs, 1 brush hunt, and an obedience run. She dealt well, she could see GTG from agility, so agility was a bust we got a few low placings. She won rally 2 (the highest offered). Kat was entered barn hunt, GTG and a couple of confo classes. She placed well in GTG and won suitability to Grey fox. Darien won youth obedience, got second in confo and third in agility and GTG. Unlike in Canada youth handlers have to use the same dog in everything. So we borrowed a really lovely dog named Belle.

The people have been wonderful, and the potluck at the end of the day beyond delicious. We made, well Laura made, I was too hot, a tastey mint oreo (which you can't get in Canada) cheese cake (with philly pre made cheese cake filling, which you can't get in Canada) in a pre made oreo shell. It was a big hit and dead easy, even whilst camping.

Spent some time talking to the conformation judges. Both were from the UK, the one now lives in the US. The one that came over to judge used to be huge into whippet racing. Learnt a lot about how other dogs got added to whippets and where to go for more info. This alone (forgetting the fun, the people and the ribbons) would have made the trip to this trial worth it.

Our tent was still wet, we should have set it up earlier in the day, but we were so busy running to one even or the next we never got a chance till late afternoon. We had hoped it would dry by the time we went to bed, no such luck. There were puddles on the floor still. Laura tried mopping them up with our least sodden towel. It was a very damp night.

Day 12

Second verse, same as the first. Almost, there was no obedience, or rally. Dekka got entered in GTG. GTG at this trial was a bit weird, but in a good way. The tunnel didn't have bars, the dog could shoot out past the rat cage at the end and run around trying to eat the cage. Dekka loves rats in little cages, rats in take out containers! Rats to go. Dekka had been having issues with leaving the tunnel to go around, but with this set up she didn't. Being our first JRTCA trial she was back in novice. She won the class with a time of 1.4 seconds. Kat got second, I forget her time but it was one point something. Dekka's agility was a bit better, but for some reason would choose contacts over tunnels when right beside and I wasn't expecting that. Its weird here, you can enter all three agility levels, so some people with rockin USDAA dogs entered all the classes, even agility 1.

Kat won suitability to greyfox again, kind of. For a joke someone entered a dane in the class. The judge came up to me (a different judge than the day before) and asked “you won this yesterday didn't you?” When I replied with the affirmative he asked if I minded if he gave the dane first. I said it was ok but I wanted the prize (first prize were these fantastic crate pads made by Betty, one of the people running the trial. So she kind of won :) I love the crate pads!

Darien made more friends and had a great day even though he entered Dekka in all his classes. She was NOT interested in playing agility with him what so ever. Her little head was on a swivel to watch me at all times. There was a couple of snarky people who were making fun of Darien's less than stellar agility run. Glad he didn't hear them. But other than the few biatches around agility all the people have been fantastic, so not too upset.

We helped with clean up as we are spending the night. Darien got compliments from a few of the adults about what a good kid he is. He was full of helpful today.

We were so gross by the end of the day we could smell ourselves. So we left the dogs under the shade and took off to go find water. We eventually found a small state park that had water... it had a beach that said no swimming. You were allowed to wade. It was strange, there were fish that kept biting our feet, bums and other less mentionable areas!! It was full of little kids, we were the only adults there. We sat in the water up to our shoulders and scrubbed ourselves with sand to get clean. Sounds strange but it works. We still would much rather had soap, but we left feeling much much better.

Tomorrow is a long day. Might try to find a cheap pay as you go phone. I missed a breeder near the trial as I was supposed to phone to meet up with her in the evening as she was trialling this weekend too. Tomorrow we drive back south down to North Carolina. Tonight we have very tired dogs, and finally dry stuff.