This year- the weather was beautiful, but our results, hmmm... Teams- Jack did okay, given how long he's been away from trialling. Certainly better than our recent teams jumping effort at Midland, where he morphed into the rarely seen NaughtyJack and gave me the middle finger at the start line. The rest of our team (Rosie and Mia) were stars, and we would have been in the running for the finals if it were not for Samroc's awful injury at Midland, which put him out of the running and brought Muddy into the team as reserve.
Muddy- hmm, less said, the better, I guess. I suppose it was unfair to throw him into the Royal as his second ever trial (and first for about 18 months). I sort of expected to have heaps of off-courses, mess up the weaves, and generally run amuck, but I never expected him to completely shut down. Yes, I suddenly became that most gruesome of agility sights- the clapping, squeaky voiced handler trying desperately to encourage their uninterested dog out of a trot. Muddy just did not want to be there- he walked most of the courses, went past 3-6 obstacles each round, and was basically the crappest agility dog I've ever seen. You would never believe it was the same dog I have at training- who isn't blindingly fast, but pretty quick and enthusiastic, and kind of fun to run. Muddy at the Royal was not fun at all.
The Open and Masters events on Monday weren't much better for us- Jack had another weird episode of hunched back and severe pain (?tummy) after getting out of the ute on Sunday arvo, so he got through 3 of his 4 runs with some anti-inflamms, and while not fast, was passable, and actually came 3rd in his first time in Open. By the 4th run (MJ) of the day, he was sore and suffering, and despite a valiant effort, he seized up again and I had to pull him. Seems fine after a couple of days rest now, thankfully.
Muddy was still pretty useless, distracted and away with the fairies for both his Open runs, but maybe a bit better than his Teams non-effort. He actually ran a couple of short sections! I'm still undecided about whether to give him a crack at Novice next Saturday- might wait and see on the day. I'll be in between night shifts, so my tolerance for half-arsed kelpies will be even lower than usual, if that's possible.
Some pics (not flash, battery was running out, but who's complaining?):
Troy and Deco tackle the seesaw:
Karen and Riot, flying over the seesaw- nice contact!
Riot was flying round in general:
Terra weaving:
and waving her fluffy butt at the crowd:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment