Fletcher USDAA, Dock Diving, and a new family member

April/May is rapidly becoming a very busy time! The last two weekends we have been out at trials, and have 2 more this month.

April 24-25 was the USDAA trial in Fletcher, NC hosted by the Blue Ridge Agility Club (BRAC). They have now moved the USDAA trial to the indoor arena at the Western NC Agricultural Center, which we could not be happier about. The covered arena was better than no arena, but I really disliked the footing in that arena. It was hard, and had too many rocks. The indoor arena has a little softer footing, but not like running in sand, and rocks aren't as much of a problem.

Harley's performance was...well...a little subpar for us. We got blanked for Q's on Saturday, mostly due to contact issues. For some reason, Harley decided that the dog walk and a-frame down contacts weren't required! Still, we had fun, and placed 3rd in two of the classes. We nearly had a Q in Pairs, but our partner eliminated on a wrong course. We don't hold anything against them for it, as that is the inherent challenge of being paired with a stranger. I really like pairs, as you get to meet a fellow competitor that you might not have gotten to know otherwise. The point of pairs is to have fun with your partner, and Q's are a nice topping. Harley did an accommodating run with another dog and Q'd with them (An accommodating run is where a dog does not have a partner, so a dog from another pair will run with them. The accommodating dog does not get credit for the Q, and cannot run the same half of the course they already ran). So technically we did Q on Saturday, but don't get the credit for it :-) Our Snooker run was looking dead on....until Harley knocked the #2 jump in the closing sequence. We needed to get through #4 to Q.

Sunday started out as a continuation of Saturday. More contact issues in Standard. Finally we got some Q's at the end of the day. Harley had a decent Snooker run with some fast thinking for James since Harley took an incorrect obstacle. Also, during the weaves, Air Force 1 took off from the adjacent airport, which made Harley pop out of her weaves due to the noise! We adjusted, however, and ended up with 40 points (need 37 to Q). Last of the day was Jumpers, which is always Harley's best event. She was visibly slower (last run of a two day trial), but still managed an easy Q.

Fast forward to this past weekend, and we attended our first Dock Dogs trial! Hosted by Carolina Dock Dogs in Sanford, NC, this trial was close and convenient. Unfortunately, Harley broke one of her nails off the day before! We bandaged it up, put some silver nitrate on it to stop the bleeding. Fortunately, it didn't seem to bother her at all, and we decided to see how it went. If it had been an agility trial, we probably would've scratched, but dock diving is must less strenuous on the feet.

Also, we decided to enter Mo in the event, just to see how it went....We only entered him in wave 1. For each wave, you get 2 jumps, and the longest jump is your score. We haven't had a lot of time to work with Mo at the lake like we did with Harley, so he wasn't exactly excited about jumping. We got him to jump in the practice round, but he decided that he just wasn't going to jump when judged. Oh well. Despite his efforts, Mo managed to get his picture in Sunday's Sanford Herald!

Harley had 3 waves on Saturday. Harley jumped a personal best of 21'9" with Kristen in Wave 2! We decided to scratch on Wave 3, since we were worried about her foot.

Sunday was the last 2 waves, and then the finals afterwards. Harley jumped very well, and we ended up in the "Masters" division. Your longest jump places you in a division, and the top 6 dogs in each division compete in the finals. The Masters division is for a longest jump of 20' to 22'11". Harley did pretty well, and ended up placing 4th in the finals.

Coming up this weekend is our 2nd AKC trial in Pendleton, SC!

We would also like to welcome the latest addition to the Davis family - James' sister, Anne, delivered her first child, Quinn Carolina Francis, on May 4th at 11:09 AM. Congratulations! We'll be driving down there soon to see our new niece :-)

Cynosport Pictures

We've been inundated with requests for pictures from our trip to Cynosport. After getting settled, we finally got around to getting them posted!

2009 Cynosport Games

Arizona & The Cynosport World Games

Just returned from our trip out west to the Cynosport World Games in Scottsdale, AZ. What an experience! We were very fortunate for Laura (James' sister) and her son Ewan to accompany us from Iowa.

We left on Wednesday, November 11th flying to Phoenix with a layover in Dallas/Ft Worth. Harley did very well in the airport and on the plane, although the Charlotte ticket counter gave us a little trouble. After picking up our rental car and getting to the hotel, it was already 12:30 AM (2:30 ET) and we had to be at the trial site at 7:00!

Thursday's itinerary included our Performance National Standard agility run and dock diving. Cynosport certainly tests your handling and course memorization as everyone walks in the morning, but you and your dog might not run it until hours later. Luckily for James, our scheduled run time was only about 1.5 hours after the walk-through.

The course was tough, and as such, I decided to be cautious and conservative in my plan. When we ran, I found myself VERY nervous, and it showed. Harley was a good sport and kept with me, but dropped the second to last jump bar, which I can only blame myself for since I didn't put her in a good position. I tried doing a rear-cross after the weaves (18) but realized Harley didn't have enough momentum yet, and my rear made her jump early. She landed on the bar (19). As always, I congratulated Harley at the finish for a great run. The dropped bar had put us just short of advancing to the Semifinals.

The Splash Dogs Dock Diving competition started shortly after our agility run. We did 3 'waves' during the course of the day, and each wave includes 2 jumps, the higher of which determines your score. We posted consistent jumps around the 18 and 19 foot marks, with our longest jump being 20 feet 6 inches.

Friday was Kristen's turn on the Performance Speed Jumping Semifinals course. Unlike the previous day, our run was not as close to the walk-through. Kristen walked the course around 8:00am, and her run was not scheduled until 2:20pm! Despite the long wait, Kristen kept the course fresh in her mind by watching other competitors' runs throughout the day. Harley did very well again, but missed her weave poll entry. She didn't get any faults for it, but the time taken to reset her back in the weaves put us outside of the top dogs. Only the top eight dogs in each height class advanced, and the slowest time of the eight in our height was 25 seconds!

We had 3 more waves of Dock Diving on Friday, and each jump was around the 17 to 19 foot mark. Harley made an impression on the announcer, who frequently remarked on her good form and how beautiful she was.

Saturday was a down day. We did one dock diving wave in the morning and then decided to drive out to the Grand Canyon as neither of us had ever been. The drive from Scottsdale was about 3.5 hours though the desert and mountains near Flagstaff. To our surprise, we drove through a snow flurry! It had been in the 70's in Scottsdale, and we were a bit unprepared for how cold it would be at the Grand Canyon. Despite the cold temperatures, the views were breathtaking. Our only regrets were not having more time to wander (we got there an hour before sunset) and not bringing warmer clothes!

Sunday went very quickly. James ran the European Jumpers course. Harley didn't do very well as she was very distracted during the run. I can't blame her - it had been a long week and she was doing much more than she would do at a normal trial.

We did qualify for the Dock Diving finals on Sunday, but unfortunately we couldn't compete since we had to catch our flight home.

After our run, we packed up everything and headed to the airport. After 2 long flights, we picked up our puppy, Mo, from my parents' house. We finally made it home at 12:30am, just in time to go to sleep and go to work the next morning!

Even though we didn't advance past the first rounds, we throughly enjoyed ourselves. USDAA knows how to put on a great trial and treat the competitors right! We hope to qualify again this coming year, especially since it was announced that the Cynosport Games would be heading east to either Philadelphia or somewhere in Kentucky.

Our next trial is in December, wish us luck!