Go, Nari, GO!!!!!!

We went to another USDAA trial on Nov. 6-7- this time it was in Cullman, AL. I decided to just embrace her horrible start lines and do a sling shot start. I basically held her slightly off the ground while I was kind of a sprinters block start position, told her the command for the first obstacle and then we both took off! So much better because I was able to keep up with her this time. I also wasn't so stressed about the start line then. And we got qualifying scores in 7 out of the 9 runs we had!!!! Here is a proud Nari with her ribbons and the toys she won (the trial gave out a toy for every Q): 

Here are the highlights:

Saturday -
Q's in Masters Snooker (3rd place), Advanced Gamblers (2nd place) and Advanced Pairs Relay (2nd place)
Finished our Advanced Gamblers and Advanced Pairs Relay titles.
Q with a 3rd place finish in the Grand Prix Local Qualifier!!!!!!


Sunday - all 1st places!!
SuperQ in Masters Snooker!!!! I decided that it was time to go all out in this run if we were going to have any chance at that SuperQ because Cheer, the super fast and super awesome sheltie who always takes first, was there. It was a 3 red jump Snooker and even though all of the dogs before us who tried to go for all three 7s ran out of time, we went for it anyway. In the opening things were going pretty smoothly and we were going pretty fast and in the closing I almost lost the run to an off-course tunnel but Nari was being such a good listener and kept with me. As soon as we made it over the finish line with the highest amount of points possible and within the time limit, everyone starting yelling and clapping for us - it was so awesome. And Cheer's handler immediately yelled out 'Nice run!!!' and she must have came up to us a couple times and told us how nice it was. It really meant a lot to me because she has got to be one of the best handlers in our height division around and she's also been on the World Team before. I think only 3 or 4 dogs out of the whole Championship class got as many points as us and the other dogs were BCs.


Q's in Advanced Gamblers and Masters Standard - It was a difficult Standard course and only 3 dogs in the whole Masters Championship class got Qs. We beat Cheer in this one as well, but only because she missed her weave entry - it would be great if we could beat her sometime with clean runs but that is going to be really difficult because that team is amazing! I love watching their runs - they are gorgeous.


Well, back in late March of this year when we went to our first USDAA trial I set this crazy goal for us to be in Masters in all of the classes before the end of this year. I never thought I would come close to that goal, especially considering all of the struggles that we have had with Gamblers, teeter fear and our table stays - but we did it!!!!


So long Starters and Advanced - we had a blast!


Hello Masters - we're here to stay for quite a while :)