Teamworks NADAC Benefit trial results - Sunday

Clover's performance on Sunday was almost
identical to Saturday. The weather was a little warmer, it was about 25 when we got to teamworks but warmed up to about 60 degrees. Perfect weather for dogs. There were fewer entries today though, about 250 compared to 380 yesterday. We finished about 2 hours earlier today too.

We ran in reverse order today so the first run was a weavers run. I knew this was going to be a Little more difficult because Clover had to go through 3 tunnels before the first set of 12 weave poles. I had to restart her multiple times and clover would not complete them. The judge then said one more time, and clover went through them and completed the rest of the course flawlessly. At the end of the run I said to the judge, "could you say 'one more time' on every run?" I had Natalie video tape this run for me so hopefully I can get it posted so you can see what I am up against.


The second run of the day was the touch and go run. Clover rushed the contacts more than I liked but we completed and Q'ed.



The next run was a tunnelers run. I clearly gave a late directional and clover went into tunnel number 2 after tunnel 7. It was interesting because I had Clover sitting on the line before the run because they had to fix an equipment problem and could feel the energy build up in her as we stood there. I have often felt that Clover didn't build up "tervy tension" at the start line because she does her startline stays perfectly, but I was wrong. I could just feel the tension build as we stood there. It made her run very fast, but she was very hard to control.



The chances class was the next class, once again I don't have the map but lets just say that the weave poles were part of the discrimination challenge... need I say more?

The next class was the jumpers class. Clover had a clean run but she wasn't as confident as I was hoping for and could have cut more time off. I was really debating how to run the start of this one. She does rear crosses so well, I was originally thinking about starting to the left of first the jump and doing a rear cross before jump 2 to pull her to three. Then I thought about starting between jump 1 and 3 and just doing a turn. but since she could actually see the tunnel opening from the start line, I did a lead out pivot after jump 2 to block her entrance to the tunnel. It was this ambivalence that showed through to clover, because it was between jump 4 and 5 that she was unsure, because I was behind her and a little late. ...it was just a litle slow and no one else would have noticed, but it certainly could have shaved some time off. We still Q'ed and placed 2nd in the class.



The final run of the day was the regular run. Clover was just nuts! ..just way hyped up. I got her to do nice contacts on the A-frame and over to the teeter, but clover entered the wrong end of the tunnel on after the teeter... at that point I didn't really care so we missed a jump and she blew her contact on the dogwalk and I made her retake that. At the weave poles I had to restart her many times, then the judge once again, said one more time and she did them cleanly.



Over all I was disappointed with the way things turned out, not because of only getting 4 Q's on 12 runs, but because I didn't see any progress since the last trial and she has shown so much progress in practice.