This weekend we attended the Mt. Hood Doberman Club AKC trial in Ridgefield, WA. My initial plan was to drive up Saturday morning, but Mr. Weatherman was calling for a possibility of ice on Saturday morning. Plan change meant driving up Friday evening, and checking in early at the La Quinta. What a great dog-friendly hotel! They don't charge a pet fee, don't care how big your dogs are, and our "Executive King Suite" was huge! I would definitely stay there again.
Saturday, November 19th
We arrived bright and early to grab some crate space. Unfortunately it was a small to tall day, so our first run wasn't even until mid-afternoon! I decided to work a class to help out, and they needed a gate due to the person that signed up being late. Boy was working an experience I won't repeat. I normally try to work at most of the clubs we run, I feel like we, as exhibitors, should all help out when we can. All I will say about this experience is: Note to trial secretaries and clubs, if you yell at your workers for doing their job, they will not want to work for you again. There are a few clubs I will not work for due to being berated about working, how the job is done, etc. This is not fair to your workers, they are VOLUNTEERING. There is no incentive to volunteer if you're going to be yelled at. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Excellent B Standard
Our judge for Standard was Beverly Morgan Lewis. I've met her before at trials when she's running her own dogs and always found her to be a pleasant person, but never run under her as a judge. Turns out, her courses were nice, open, and very large dog friendly.
For this course, the plan was to start on the right, over the first two jumps and into the tunnel, over #4 and a swing through the "three sided box" and over 5 (the triple). A pull back to the dogwalk, then a pull to the double (#8), teeter, then a front cross before #10. A hard pull around and into the weaves. Over the A-frame and on to the table. Front cross before the pinwheel (14/15/16/17) and a front cross between 17 and the chute. Then run for the finish.
Worked out very well for us. We ended with a Q and 14 MACH points.
Excellent B Jumpers with Weaves
Nancy Davis set this course up. Again lined up on the right, with a fairly straight shot into the tunnel. Front cross between #5 and the weave poles. FC between #8/9, another between #12/13. I intended to do another FC between 13/14, but forgot and ended up doing a rear to swing him around to 15. From there it was a straight shot into the tunnel and then over the final jump.
Another Q and 7 MACH points.
Total for the day, QQ and 21 MACH points!
Back to the hotel for a relaxing night of the boxers hogging the king bed. :P
Sunday, November 20th
Tall to small today, so we knew we'd be done early!
Excellent B Standard
Plan worked well, another Q and 13 MACH points.
Excellent B Jumpers with Weaves
Looked to be a pretty jumpers course, smooth and flowing. When I was planning our course, I noticed that there were several nice places for rear crosses. We'd been having trouble with rear crosses lately, my cruddy timing was causing HP to pull off, earning us a refusal. We'd been working a lot on his "go on" command, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and do mostly rear crosses with this course.
The plan was to line up on the left side, rear cross between 3/4, rear cross between 8/9, front cross after the weaves, then another rear between 15/16. It worked! He was driving ahead well, moving nicely, even when I almost forgot the course at number 6! (You'll notice a slight pause on the video). I was stoked. It earned us a Q and 11 MACH points.
Total for the day: QQ and 24 MACH points.
Total for the weekend: 2 QQs and 45 MACH points.
MACH totals so far: 6 QQs and 223 MACH points!
We stayed to grab a couple of the photos taken by Joe Camp. He had captured a cute "out of chute" series from one of the runs. It's nice to see my boy looking so happy as he runs. :)
That is just terrible that club members would berate or belittle a volunteer to lending a hand. How awful. No wonder I hear of so many people who don't want to volunteer at trials! Who would if THAT kind of thing is going to happen? Nice runs and nice dog :) Just came across your blog and love it!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kim! I think he's an awesome boy but I'm a little biased. :) I'm not sure how to fix the problem of volunteers at trials, but it has become more prevalent as of late. :( There are a few clubs I absolutely will not work for because of it, and I almost always try to work at least a class or two!
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