Saturday, September 13, 2008

All Dogs trial

Three runs today:

Advanced Team: Signed her up for this back when I was feeling more optimistic :-D Fortunately, our draw partner who has a nice little Pyr Shep was totally easygoing and both our dogs totally screwed up so no one let anyone down. They took the first part which meant that Lucy didn't have to do the frame and that I wouldn't have to deal with getting a hold of her in the box. Well, Lucy had her sights set on the nearby offcourse dogwalk on the opening line. We must have had a few other goofs but I didn't write it down and now the day's details are a fuzzy blur. Oh but I do remember that she held 2o2o on both dogwalks (the offcouse and the legit one) but she was sniffing the ground both times while in 2o2o. Good news is that she happily waited for me before exiting the ring.

Advanced Snooker: Just what I was hoping for: There was no frame on the course, yay! Our opening was the #7 teeter twice and the #2 tunnel. Lucy was slow and unpeppy but somehow we made it through to the end of the closing even though she *walked* through the weaves. So a Q for Lucy but not exactly our best ever performance.

Advanced Jumpers: This was at the end of a long day. If only my dogs would be able to sleep in their crates/xpens during their downtime. Anyway, let's just say man did my pom-poms get a workout. Halfway through the course, however, she went to the fence and started sniffing at the grass. Clearly she was not into this run so I put an end to the torture for all involved and signalled to the judge that we were done. Lucy's fence-sniffing was strange behaviour as usually when she's stressed or just not into a run she heads straight for the exit gate, but the fence she went to sniff at was at the opposite end of the ring and even when we went running to the exit I had to really cheerlead her to get her to break into a canter.

Later at home I looked at her feet out of curiosity and noticed a cut on her left rear pad which was definitely sensitive to the touch. No idea when or how she got it as it wasn't there a few days ago when I trimmed her nails, and she hadn't been limping. Surely to goodness this injury played a role in today's performance, my poor Lucy. She has gotten strange cuts like this before including once shortly before a trial from which I therefore scratched her, $45 down the drain but obviously the right thing to do. So, I vow from here on to inspect her feet before every single run to make sure there are no cuts.

As usual, she was a joy to hang out with, and she even got some compliments on her sweetie-pie good looks from a very nice woman who was taken with her. Lucy loves everyone so she was glad to soak up the lovin' and it was nice that for once it was her instead of Mr. Fancypants Walter who got the attention of a stranger. :-)

1 comment:

Natasha said...

Hiya,

Thanks for the nice comments on my blog!! Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, I've been so busy with school lately.

I do remember seeing Lucy's Jumpers run, but I didn't want to bother you after your run and then the trial was over soon afterwards! It was nice to see you at the mini-trial though!

~Nat