2017 Northwest Cup

OMG, USDAA can’t possibly squeeze any more classes into a day. They now have Intro and the Misc classes, which was an un-numbered standard course people could ‘train in the ring’ with a toy and a tunnelers course. Now, the tunnelers was fun and Haku got to play, but there are already so many classes in a day, it just seems silly to be adding even more.

I do wonder how exactly I was planning to run Bright in a bunch of classes and then also Navarre in a bunch in the other ring. And I was tired just running one dog – and Bright had originally been signed up for more runs than Navarre! When we only have so many USDAA trials, sometimes it SEEMS like a good idea to sign up for all these things … it rarely is.

Navarre did run almost all his runs over the weekend, we skipped Biathlon Jumpers this afternoon though. Which looked like a fun course, but it was the end of the day and we already had to run our Gamblers course twice due to timer malfunction. Running Gamblers twice is dumb, let me say. But guess which goofy puppy is now in Master Gamblers? Navarre likes to go OUT THERE. It’s kind of his thing.

Navarre also got his AD! Well, the performance equivalent. Which may be like P1 or something? So much easier to just call it ‘Performance Starters’, I never have gotten on board with the weird separate name thing. And, yes, the performance stigma is still there. I had no less than 4 people ask me why he was in Performance over the weekend. Like there was something wrong with him or else he’d obviously be running championship. Sigh. There are lots of great dogs in Performance, it’s not a ‘lesser’ program to me …

So we ran in Advanced (Uh, P2?) today and picked up a standard leg, his last advanced gamblers leg and a jumpers leg, which means he actually only needs a few more legs to be all in Masters. Why did it take 6 years to do that with Bright?

Navarre even won both rounds of Steeplechase! Navarre says Steeplechase and Gamblers are his favorite. So we made some money and had a lot of fun. Really, Navarre did great with almost everything. We imploded in Biathlon standard though, which was a hot mess. We had a gamblers run where I forgot to call my dog, so we messed up the gamble when he went straight instead, and he DID run around the last obstacle in his Starters standard run, because he likes to make me sweat about that kind of thing, but we fixed it. But, overall, puppy was trying super hard and doing such great things! We even came in 3rd for the NW Cup, which was pretty cool too – I tell you, stiff competition in Performance!

Oh, and Navarre really liked tunnelers! He definitely approved of that class. And so did Haku! His first agility in competition since we crashed that NADAC trial many years ago. I was a bit worried he would forget what the point was, but he did great. His ‘stay’ was hilarious though! Haku IS a good dog, he wouldn’t break his stay, but he was allowed to scoot in agility to gauge the first jump with his ETS. So he just scooted himself ALL the way to the first tunnel and put his head in it – but he waited (ever so briefly!)! Just love that dog, this really made his day. Agility is for being a DOG, he likes his obedience, but he can’t be that wild and crazy in obedience.

Not a super exciting weekend for Pixel, the trial days were long (SO MANY CLASSES). We’ve been working on tricks and she’s been getting more comfortable sassing at the border collies. But now that they think of her as ‘just Pixel’ they seem to have no response to when she’s barking and jumping on their heads. Even Bright seems to have filed her under, “Not worth snarking at.”

Speaking of Bright, she looks good, after getting to hang out in her crate all weekend I let her party with everyone since Heidi and Dove were here. She’s not 100%, but she looks good. I can secretly hope that she’ll just be magically better and can run in the trial next weekend, but I realize that’s a longshot. Still, I’m just grateful she’s doing so well and it’s not her knee, we’ll take off as long as it takes.

Lots of cute puppies at the trial! Always fun to play with them all, I love puppies. No Puppy Fever here though, it’s fun to play with them, but Navarre is still quite enough big dorky puppy for me. Been enjoying playing with Pixel while she’s here, as it’s always fun to train a different personality a bit, but it will be nice to get back to just my three – they are a wonderful group of dogs and get along so well.