Hot? I'll show you hot!
High points:
1) 63 point jackpot run, in the top 10 out of all 130+ dogs in the class (all levels run the same course for most games). I had a smart plan and stuck to it for a change; he did every single thing I asked. Oh, and I managed not to step over the gamble line this time.
2) Jumpers run. Level 3 dogs jump with the higher levels. It was a nice flowy course with one tricky patch toward the end, followed by a long straight shot, 4 jumps the length of the ring to the finish. Mox was dazzling fast and clean until the very last jump -- because I had to monitor the tricky part I was at the far end of the ring when he started the run home, and because he was absolutely flying he very quickly got a long way ahead of me. I was running as hard as I could and yelling at him to go on, but it's a big ring; I might as well have been in another county! He went straight on over 3 of the 4 jumps, then seemed to realize he'd lost me, and turned back. When I almost caught up and yelled go on again he spun and took the jump the wrong way. We fixed it quickly and he got a nice round of applause. I figured he'd NQ'd but I didn't care -- 16/17ths of the run had been so fine. Turns out a back-jump is 5 faults, and at Level 3 there are 5-fault Q's. The cool thing was that even with the spin, the back-jump and correction, he had the 5th fastest time out of 130+ dogs.
3) Clean run and 2nd fastest time (130+ dogs, all levels) in Wildcard.
4) Perfect start-line stays, perfect weaves, no blown contacts.
Low point:
One standard course had one of those tunnel/dogwalk discriminations that have caused us trouble in the past. I left him "parked" at the teeter while I ran past 2 jumps and was right there hovering over the trouble spot before I released him. Damned if he didn't scoot under my outstretched arm and take the dogwalk anyway. Little stinker! We have some work to do.
On staying cool in this kind of heat: #1, a lot of people just didn't run their dogs. There were a lot of no-shows.
#2, The nice folks at WAG did everything possible to keep people and dogs from frying. They were passing out bottled water left and right. They had set up several misting stations, where you could stand with your dog under a fine spray of water. There were at least 3 hoses and 3 tubs (think kiddies' wading pools) for wetting down the dogs. They were also selling those water-retaining bandanas -- filled with some kind of crystals that turn into a gel when you soak them. I already had one, that i bought for Miko a couple of years ago but it didn't fit him properly and didn't seem to like it. So i wore it!! It really did help and made quite the fashion statement.
#3 Drink water, drink water, drink tea, drink water, drink juice. Don't forget to eat a little something too. I realized at about 1 o'clock that my knees felt rubbery. It was too hot for me to feel hungry but I'd had breakfast at 5:30, just a banana and some toast. So I ate an apple and then got a hot dog from Danny the food vendor and felt okay again.
#4, Shade, shade, shade. The woven silver-mesh reflecting sheets I bought last year weren't cheap, but they not only create shade, they bounce the heat back in the sun's face (take that!!). AND, because they're a loose weave, they allow for air movement. In addition to the dogs' crates, I had invested in an ex-pen. These are wire-grate fence panels that come in sets of 6 panels that fan-fold down flat for carrying and then you open them up and arrange them into a square (or rectangular or whatever) pen. I set up the 2 crates next to each other and then set up the ex-pen with the ends clipped to either side of the crates, creating 2 little dens side by side with a nice yard in front, everything underneath the shade canopy. It was pretty nice, actually. Miko preferred his crate but Moxie mostly slept on the grass in his yard.
#5, Fuggeddabout glamor! By noon, I was not only hosing Moxie down after his runs, I was turning the hose on myself. I wasn't the only one, either. Can we say "wet t-shirt contest"? I found that the best thing was to soak my hair/head. And my hat. And then put the wet hat on my wet hair; you can just imagine how it looked when it dried. :-) No biggie -- I just wet it down again.
#6, Things I noticed that other people did: some had battery-operated fans. There was a discussion of these on one of my agility lists awhile back; the consensus was that most of them had pretty poor battery life. But I talked to a woman who got hers at Wal-mart for about $30, and she loves it.
Some people kept damp mesh coats on their dogs even in their crates. I saw a few of the belly-packs that were designed for military dogs in Iraq. They're pretty expensive, but the maker donates part of the profit to providing the packs for soldier dogs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our next competition will be a NADAC "specialty" trial in mid-June -- no jumps, just tunnels, weaves and contact obstacles. And hoops, though I'll be in spectator mode for those. Should be different, and fun. Meanwhile I'm taking Moxie to WAG on the 1st for a distance workshop with Susan Rapillus. {Drumroll} Watch this space for a report of how that goes.
