The second trial for our SA Champs/AWC Try-Outs has come and gone. And even though I am biased (But like REALLY REALLY biased), I have to say Chaos did it in style. Each trial consists of a Contact round (Agility) and a Non-Contact round (Jumping) and Spaz Sticks gave me two decent clears... well one iffy moment in the jumping round, which as per the usual was completely my fault... Forward motion from handler = Forward motion from dog... hello stupid Alett, that is Agility 101.... anyhow, I managed to correct it with only about a 0.7 second time loss and despite that still managed to win that round nationally in the AWC Try Out section. Pretty friggin cool if you ask me. To make it even awesome-er, Chaos is now lying second (out of 90 dogs) in the SA Champs qualification, he is also second in the AWC Try-Out Category (Small, Medium and Large Combined)... Okay I will stop this bragging bullShi*%& now... Especially considering that in my personal opinion our qualifying system is really a bit ridiculous. And there is still a looooong way to go. Third regional trial this coming weekend, fourth regional trial on 18 March and then of course *drumroll* the finals in June. Quite frankly I just wish we were running the two remaining regional trials tomorrow so I could get it over with and start preparing for the finals. If you feel like looking at the results, you can go to http://gauteng-agility.co.za/php/results.php. The SA Champ/AWC Try Out results are at the bottom of the page.
Of course we also had Dog Jumping at this show, but after his good performance in the Agility side of things, I had a joking chat to Chaos that he could do what he wanted in the Dog Jumping... Eish, unfortunately he took me up on that and for the first time in his life... he BROKE his wait... oi, not so good. I did manage to save the moment though AND get a clear and in the end win the class. But you just have to laugh. I mean Chaos has always been a bit of a creeper, but never has he solidly broken his wait.
Here is the video of the run-off:
In the last while so many people in the last while has said to me that 'this will be Chaos's year' and while I understand what they are saying and appreciate their support and interest in the Spaz-a-monius, that is not 'how it is for me'. Me and Chaos have reached that fantastic point in our competing career where we just gel. We know what to expect from each other and we both try as hard as we can without having to worry about little things. Of course I am hoping to achieve my goals this year, but the biggest thing that it is just fun and fantastic and enjoyable and GOOD to run Chaos. And THAT is the thing that I would like to maintain throughout the year.
Now on to young Mr. Steinen Meister, the Sheltie dog. What a super awesome little guy. Except for the whole tire thing of course... at his previous show, he decided it was a super cool idea to jump through the side of the tire. So he has been on Tire Boot Camp for the last week... Sigh except that he made the same decision on Sunday. Guess who's boot camp has been renewed for another week? Other than that though I think he had quite a nice round... despite for some reason crashing into the side of the tunnel a bit (since I can't quite see inside the tunnel I am not able to tell you what happened) which slowed him down... In another two weeks he can compete in Agility too. FINALLY! I can't wait... especially after this morning... Up to now, he has been doing the see saw on lower height (woohoo for adjustable see saws!), but this morning I put it up to full height. And of course Super Sheltie just nailed it. NERD! I do have a problem though, my see saw has WAY too much bounce, which is okay for a large dog, but not for a little half pint weighing in at 4.8kg. I am looking into ways to fix that, but for now I have one of two solutions... I release if I see it is going to bounce back to badly or I put my foot on it to stop the bounce. Neither ideal, but I will fix it soon. Now I can start working on independent performance (which the nerd already has on the dog walk and A-frame) and tadaa, we will be ready for Agility! Well baby dog Agility, but who cares, at least he will get more than one run a day and I can start proofing contacts and things.
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