Tailwaggers #3
What a weird experience – no rain, no snow, no ice! Just a cool but bright day, and standing outside in the sun was lovely. Please can all the future Tailwaggers shows be like this?
Power and Speed first, Dylan’s favourite class. The Jumping section was a little too Helter Skelter for me, and true to form, I made a right hash of it and pulled Dyl off a jump mid way around. Oops! Took lots of stick about that from … well, nearly everyone, but mainly Rob, Vicki and Lindsay! I was good and held all his contacts properly in the Power section; we took our time and Dyl looked fab.
Tunnel Teaser was … interesting? The course was the same for all the levels, and it was a pure killer, E’s all over the place! I wasn’t worried about the traps but I was very concerned about remembering where I was going! I felt a little bad for Dylan, he tried for me like he always does, but I was really unsure about what I was doing and my hesitation made him steady up. There also wasn’t anywhere to pick up speed, it was constant turning and call-offs. We went clear anyway, and then finished up 1st! So that’s our first Jumping win towards Novice, which is rather unexpected! To be honest, there were only 2 clears, but Dylan beat 2nd by 11s and his time would have put him 3rd in the Novice and 2nd in the Graduate Plus, so maybe he wasn’t so slow after all.
I made sure to tell everyone that I was going to hold Dyl’s contacts in Primary Agility, just so they could call me out on it if I didn’t. But I did! I had to, otherwise I would have died of oxygen deprivation, since it was the longest course in existence. The judge runs a very drivey Weimeraner, and it showed in the course design! Dylan ran it like a star, he was clearly enjoying himself out there and he did a beautiful sliding seesaw stop, just like training! We pulled off a flick around at the top of the course (13-15) and it was just a nice run. We finished up 4th, about a second behind Vicki’s Diesel who had a really beautiful run – I think he’d win it but apparently not!
Primary Jumping was a bit of a wicked course, but if it went well it would flow nicely. I really went for it with Dylan and we were having a flying round, really smooth, until I messed up off Jump 12, oops! I thought Dylan was most likely to take the far tunnel entry, but I pulled him with me for the nearside. I dithered, he dithered, we wasted 3 hours deciding whether to do the tunnel or not. Refusal! This is clearly a recurring theme. Must work on spatial awareness and remember that Dyl always clings tighter in the ring. We finally got it back together and finished up without getting E’d, but we’d lost the plot slightly by that point and I cued Dyl for a flick back at 16 which I hadn’t intended, which also wasted a lot of time. Anyway, despite the 5R, we came 7th (fastest 5 faults) and would have walked away with another 1st if I hadn’t been an idiot. How often do I say that!?
All these results put us up near the top of all the League Tables, which I’m thankful for. We are skipping a couple of the usual BAA shows either for flyball or closer BAA shows, so I knew we needed some good early results to keep us in contention for promotion next year. Having said that, Dyl just needs one more Agility and Jumping win now to go into Novice, which is both awesome and terrifying!