the sheltiechick blog

Trial #2, Day 2

Our haul from today…

Wait a second!! Are you SURE you saw that right?? Maybe you should look closer.

I am now the proud owner of Sentinel’s The Flash NAJ CGC. That’s right… we got our novice jumpers title this weekend!! And all three of his qualifying scores – we got running 16! Snazzy!

Today’s runs:

Standard run!
He got buggy on the table and that’s what screwed us, but J is almost positive he just didn’t “see” the table as a table. She thinks he saw it like a jump, since it’s so thin and the walls around it are plain white, not to mention the top is pale purple. So we got 1 table fault (two points) and a refusal for that, but it was the time more than anything else that really put us over. I then failed to pull him in enough to get him a straight shot into the tunnel, so he didn’t go into that right away – another refusal! Also, notice that he doesn’t come OUT of the tunnel. I notice he’s not coming, I can’t see the tunnel moving – where is Auggie? I lean over and look into the tunnel… and he’s standing there at the bend, nose to the ground, sniffing something interesting! He sees me, goes “Oh – HI!” and comes running out. What a goofball!
Regardless of the NQ, I watched this a billion times because of how wonderful his weaves are!

JWW – the run that got us our title!

Would have been clean, but he changed my plan on me! I was going to front cross before that blue tunnel, but when he spotted the tunnel he suddenly sped up so I couldn’t get in front. I KNEW he would hate me trying to rear cross him into the tunnel, and sure enough, when he got to the tunnel entrance and I started to try and cross, he suddenly hit the brakes. Refusal! The time it took for me to back him up and put him into the tunnel put us over time. You can’t see them as well here, but he did flawless weaves again here… so beautiful.
Anyway, I came around that last jump and everybody was clapping and going “THAT WAS GREAT!” and the VMO says to me “That was a Q!!” and my mom goes “YOU DID IT” and J goes “YOU DID IT!”
And I say, because I saw the time on the clock as I picked Auggie up at the exit, “But we went over time.”
“It’s okay,” J says. “You’re allowed time faults in Novice.”
I stare at her.
“You get a point off for every second over time, but you weren’t over by that much, even with the refusal. You did it.”
I stare.
“YOU DID IT.”
“Wh…??”

Seriously… it didn’t sink in. It didn’t sink in until I looked at the scores posted and saw, yes, he really did Q. And then I stammered out to the trial secretary that we get a new title ribbon. And even now…
we’re in Open. My dog can run in Open.

I’m in shock. Seriously.


Trial #2, Day 1

His prize, a “Q” cookie for qualifying, and his 1st place & qualifying score ribbons.
These are for JWW – no Q in standard (again!) Not really his fault, though!

I couldn’t get him to relax enough to measure under 14 inches – he was 14 3/8ths (an improvement from 15.5 like he measured last trial!) So we ran 16 instead of 12 again. He didn’t make it all the way over the broad jump, I’m not sure if he misjudged the length of the jump or if I just didn’t give him enough “push” to get him over it. But still… no dropped bars, not a single one, and I JUST managed to call him off an off-course up the a-frame (holy crap did I just!!) Besides his landing on the final section of the broad jump, it was a great run. Not his fastest – we are going to have to retrain contact obstacles, I think – but accuracy > speed, my friends.

JWW was beautiful, even though he missed his first attempt at entry on the weave poles (allowed in novice.) 100 points, and the time was… 39.76 or something? I wrote it down, I do not remember it off the top of my head.

Here’s the video of our Standard run – apologies for my annoying yapping of “AUGGIE AUGGIE HERE HERE AUGGIE HERE!”

Couldn’t be happier, particularly because after they measured him over 14 I honestly was ready to just write the entire day off as a wash. I figured we would totally blow it, because it was indoors and he was in the “wrong” height class… and he had to go and prove me wrong.

Because my awesome Auggie is bad to the bone!


I am a terrible dog owner

>I still had a half-full can of Mountain Dew left from dinner that I’d been drinking through the night. My head hurt, so I decided I’d go take a shower and see if that would help. Auggie comes into the bathroom with me, and when I shower he lays down on the floor – today is no different. The can of soda came with me, too, and I set it on the sink.

I got out of the shower and was distracted, thinking about something. Not paying a heck of a lot of attention, I grabbed a towel and flung it around me… and caught the soda can, knocking it off the sink.

Onto Auggie.

MOUNTAIN DEW EVERYWHERE ON MY DOG. OMG.

He jumped up like “WTF, MOM???” and gave me this horrified look.
And then he proceeded to lick up what had spilled onto the floor.

Even better – I’m frantically trying to mop up the soda with toilet tissue, and Auggie is licking it up while his entire backend is dripping in soda also, and I say to him… because I’m a total genius… “Auggie, if you drink that so close to your bedtime, you won’t be able to fall asleep!!!”
*facepalm at self*

He then got stuck into the shower and rinsed off, and now he REALLY hates me. I’m sorry, Auggie!! I’m such a bad dog owner!