I entered the Star City Agility Teams last trial they
will ever have, I didn't know this at the time, but the three remaining club
members have decided to shut down the club and stop holding this trial. Truly
sad since I really enjoyed their very friendly trials.
So I get up early on Thursday morning (Thanksgiving) and
head to Nebraska around 9:00 am. There was hardly anyone on the roads and it
was an easy trip to Wahoo, except for the wind and the huge dust storms
covering I80. I was rather shocked to see all restaurants/fast food places along
the way were closed! Unreal, so I ended up picking up lunch at the only open
place along the route... McDonalds (yuck)!
I arrive in Lincoln and check into the hotel and go into
shock. The hotel smelled like cigarette smoke, body odor and a musty locker
room! The room was really dingy and gave me the willies! They stuck me clear down
the hall at the end with an exit door that was only used for emergencies! Really
nice... not! So I had to walk a half mile every time I wanted to get something
out of the car.
I get to the trial site at 8:00 am and I'm the only one
there, since they are having a late start at 10:00 am the locals haven't gotten
out of bed yet.
So the trial finally starts at 10:45 am, and I'm nervous.
I've been here since 8:00 am, and we still haven't ran our first leg. Then I
find out they have changed the running order and Fullhouse will run first.
What? That is the main leg I came all this way to get, and we have to run it
the very first run of the day. Good grief! So I walk the course, plot my path
and hope Dolcenea is ready to Q!
We take off from the start line, run through the obstacles
(and points) we need and fly to the table! Viola! Dolcenea did it, we got 29
points and only needed 23 to Q and she did it! Yippee! Dolcenea finally finished
her CATCH!!! I can finally relax! At least I thought.
The next thing I know the gentleman crated next to me
says "are you running in this?", I say which one is it and he says
the second round of Fullhouse? What....? He says the gate steward is calling
your name! So I yell I'll be right there, grab poor Dolcenea out of her crate
and run to the start line! Off we go! One small problem... I never walked the
course and I have no idea how it should be played. Oh well we're off and true
to form Dolcenea follows mom around the course and we finish just in time to
get 25 points and another Q in Fullhouse! Yippee. I guess I need to stop
walking the courses before I run, because I run much better not having a clue
where I'm going!
Next were two rounds of Jackpot, one traditional, one
nontraditional. The traditional Jackpot run was fine, but the Nontraditional
was a mess. I'm not sure what was going on at the scribe chair, but the scribe
cheated me out of 11 points and poor Mike, I had to walk him through my run all
over again using the course builder map. He remembered and changed my score,
but what a mess.
And finally at around 5:00 pm we ran our one and only
Standard run.
For Saturday we completed two Snookers runs, and the
first one was fairly easy, and Dolcenea Q'd easily. But the second round of
Snooker really got allot of people and Dolcenea was one of a handful of dogs to
Q, blowing out all of the bullet dogs. None of them Q'd on this Snooker course.
We ran another Standard run, and two Jumpers runs and
Dolcenea did okay, she was rather tired from Friday's runs, but she was a trooper
and stayed with mom and completed the task at hand.
So over all the trip was okay, the hotel sucked, but
Dolcenea rocked! She Q'd 10 for 10 all first places and completed her CATCH. I
am so proud of this girl, words cannot describe it. She is one amazing Akita!
