Are We Having Fun Yet?

So day three has passed, two more classes done! Being the halfway point, I think it's a good time to ask- are we having fun yet?

Well, let's look at what I've got: a happy dog- plus! She is running confidently for the most part and has had respectable times where I can compare. I think The Dog is having a good time, and what has surprised me the most is how well she is holding up to the "pressure" of stress/excitement. (Normally she would collapse like one of those cool collapsable water bowls from the Clean Run vendor...)And believe me, there is a ton of stress and excitement. Walk early, run late, watch dog after dog "whoops" every thing imaginable on the course, racing around to get to where you need to be just to make sure you're there for the delays before your run with your reactive dog... Sigh. Stress!

Now let's look at how it's going:

In Team Gamble, she ended in roughly the middle of the pack, due to some mega missed Aframe contacts. The team of Dog, Black Dog and Brother Dog (Seeker) was above the cutoff after this class.

She had a nice run with minus one Aframe contact in Steeple today, so that took her out of Round 2 range (nice time, but not enough to get under the cutoff with a fault).

She finally had a clean run in Team Standard- yay! I feel much better getting that under my belt. Hopefully we can carry this over to tomorrow's Grand Prix QFs. Our team hopes may have died after a teensy off course by Black Dog (jump cluster *BLEEP* was a real *BLEEP*)but there were so many "whistles" that I can say with some confidence that it ain't over til it's over.

Add to this roller coaster of high and lows the fact that I have inhaled the 1930's Dust Bowl. Yep, it's all here, right in my nose. So I'm feeling a bit congested.

So- is this fun?

Hmmm... There is a fuzzy warm ball who sleeps on my feet no matter what happens. This is the best thing ever. :)

We Live in RV land now...

And it's a tough, rugged land. It's dog eat dog out here, fights are breaking out left and right for territory. The land rush proved fruitful for the Lemches and we have only had to shoot one or two trespassers so far.

Just kidding.

It IS pretty busy now though and RV land is quickly filling up. We got in pretty early before the crowd hit and got a nice spot by some old friends. Which is good since we have a common dump hole thingy and water thing. As you can tell, I am learning lots of technical RV speak. Other things I've learned:

You need a dump pipe long enough to reach the dump hole or bad things happen

Airports are not made to accommodate RVs but if you go in the wrong place to get your rental car airport officials will escort you about for free to make sure you don't destroy the airport

You have to remember to close your blinds when you are in RV land.

After settling into RV land we set out with the girls to make our rental practice time. Practice went well; the Dog was HOT and jumped like trash but listened very well and nailed all contact zones and weave entries. Black dog was awesome and had good start line work. White Dog was typical perfect- the big test will come later for her though; we are hoping her shoulder holds up and doesn't stiffen up after a rest. The main goal was to get out the evils, so major success- they are all wiped out.

Excited that in less than 24 hours we will be walking the first class! Trying to test with this and post a picture below of sleepy Dog at the table. If it works I can provide fast updates with courses and results in picture form. Otherwise we will see how much news I can produce- hopefully I will be faster than USDAA's site last year!

Mmm, margaritas and bad western now!

No-Go Dog