The AKC agility trial was at the SugArena this weekend. The club didn't offer FAST so I didn't enter Bern. I started out the day Saturday feeling a little rocky and wellness wise I went downhill from there. We took tracking gear to practice Xan and Grace. Tracey laid Grace a track while I was walking the Novice JWW course. I feeling poorly and forgot about the new weave handling plan - Grace's weaves were horrid but the rest of the course was beautiful. She cleared the last jump (a double) with ample room to spare for a 2nd Place Q.
The track Tracey laid for Grace was about 2 hours old when we ran it. The grass was really tall, the ground was wet and smelly, and Grace did lots of crittering. From a handler's standpoint it is pretty easy to tell when she is tracking and when she is crittering. She was slightly downwind of the actual track on the last leg and Tracey and I had to encourage her to find the glove - which she did very well. I am amazed that she could critter that much and sort of stay on the track at all. We need to work on tracking when there are critter smells. Tracey had not seen Grace critter before and thought it was quite amusing that her little nubby tail could circle that quickly.
Back to the arena for Novice Standard. By this time of the day I was feeling awful so I'm sure my handling and enthusiasm were not anywhere near "normal". Grace smashed the broad jump and was worse at the weaves than in jumpers. NQ.
I was quite ill before I got home Saturday afternoon late. I opted to stay home Sunday to recover. I'm definitely better.
