Doesn't sound like fun, does it? I'll be honest- it wasn't much fun. It was 106 degrees. But, you might say, it was a dry heat. (As if that makes it ok. Agility in 106 degree weather is never ok.) This time it wasn't! So there! It was 40 percent humidity!!! And I was there ALL DAY because Pie was in novice and Dottie was in excellent. Not to worry- no dogs were in any danger of heat related injuries. They stayed in the shade all day with lots of water, and only came out to run for their 30 -50 seconds. I seemed to be suffering, though. Probably I should have been drinking water. I also stayed in the shade, and had my had and gloves on. Gloves? Yes- I am being plagued by sunburn on my hands. Strange, I know. Hence the gloves. It looks odd, but is better than the alternative, which last time was hands so painful I couldn't sleep and then as they healed and peeled looked like I had been burned by acid. Yuck-o.
I ran the Mal in Time 2 Beat. Pie was in preferred and was the only dog and ran clean so she got the 10 points. She had fun, but since it is about speed and is not a hard course, but since we had no competition, there was not the excitement of if we would set the "time to beat" and get the 10 points, it wasn't that thrilling for me. Dottie took the off course tunnel twice in a row so no points on that run.
Pie ran clean in novice all weekend. She looks funny over the 20 inch jumps. She just kind of hops over them, instead of jumping a nice arc. Ah well- they are awfully low. But that is the point.
Fancy was not entered- and good thing in that heat!
Dottie had no Qs on Saturday and was quite "bad" in standard. I blame the heat. She seems to suffer from its effects more than either of the other girls. I eventually pulled her from the course due to lack of effort on her part. She was much better in jumpers which I think was because I warmed her up with food instead of a toy. In the heat, the playing with a toy ahead of time probably got her tired before she even ran.
Today Dottie got her first Ex B Jumpers Q! With a first place, beating the 20 inch dog who jumps 24 inches and always beat Pie by a 1/10 of a second. Dottie beat him by a full second. And we were not trying to go fast due to the heat and due to the fact that hurting my knees is so far in the front of my mind I can barely concentrate on the course. Which means I am running very slowly. Dottie's time was not amazing compared to the rest of the 20 inch Border Collies, and the fastest 24 inch dogs had not qualified, but it was still nice to beat Pie's nemesis.
This week coming up will be filled with more tracking, then a 3 day agility trial where ffluffy will join us, then no more agility until after our SchH trial.
In family news, my sister was spared the wrath of Hurricane Irene, but she did feel the earthquake they had there a few days ago. She lives in NC. My brother is going to Hawiii on business (lucky guy,) and my mom's school will be starting up right after Labor Day. My youngest brother is working on his Eagle Scout project (making care packages for 200 deployed Marines) and my dad got stung by a bee while swimming, even though he always rescues bees who otherwise would have drowned. Bad bee.
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