Erie Kennel Club AKC Agility Trial – MACH2 Zhora and QQ #15 Nina!
MACH2 Alkemi Blade Runner LS MXS MJS NF T2B (Zhora)
Me and MACH2 Zhora saying thanks judge Jeff Ipser!
What a weekend! Zhora earned her MACH 2 (Master Agility Champion 2 – that’s 40 double Q’s and 1500 speed points), Nina FINALLY earned another double Q (#15, first since last April), and had her best weekend overall in a very, very long time, the weather was terrible, the judge got sick and we had to get a replacement judge (just like when Zhora earned her MACH, actually!), the judge’s ring measurements were incorrect so we had to change the courses (an AKC rep came to the trial Saturday and Sunday)…excitement, adventure and really wild things.
The lake hasn’t frozen yet, so we are still getting lake effect snow. With lots of warnings in the forecast for this weekend, Sue and I decided to caravan and drive up Thursday afternoon in the hopes of having to drive through a north-moving lake effect snow band as it passed over us, thus minimizing our exposure to it. Well…the band didn’t move as expected, which meant we, and a ton of other people, were trapped in our cars at the Lackawanna toll booths for nearly two hours after a truck jack knifed at the Blasdell exit on I-90. It was frightening, the snow was coming down very heavily (almost 5″ per hour at some points), building up around the car tires, and it was so cold that the wipers kept icing up, so we had to keep getting out to clear snow off our cars and deice our wipers. We eventually got moving and got off the Thruway, had dinner, and then Jim navigated from home to help us find a way out of Hamburg. There were driving bans all over the place, accidents everywhere, you couldn’t tell where the road was, it was very, very scary. We left my house at 3 PM and I eventually made it back home just before 10 PM. Friday morning we decided to try again once the plows had been out, and other than a very nasty few miles with whiteout conditions, the drive was uneventful.
We arrived at Countryside just as the last few dogs were running Standard. The judge (Kelli Verrelli) kindly agreed to let Sue and I run, and we walked the course a few times still wearing our winter boots. Well, lo and behold, BOTH my girls qualified on a very tricky standard course with a very low Q rate. And then they went on to BOTH qualify in Jumpers – a double double Q Friday, WELL worth the drive!
Nina ran just beautifully all weekend, really paying attention to her jumping and knocking very few bars, and qualifying in all three Jumpers runs plus standard on Friday for QQ # 15.
Not only did Zhora earn her MACH 2 just 8 months after her MACH, she ran fast and happy and very attentively. In our standard run today (for her MACH2), we were on the startline when they noticed a timer problem, so we left the ring while they fixed it. Zhora has shown herself to be very level-headed about things like that, I just knelt down on the ground with her and played with her and she was unflappable. She came out just as ready to run as she’d been the first time. And she was the ONLY 8″ dog to qualify on that course. The Q rates were quite low overall, especially for the big dogs.
So thankful to judge Jeff Ipser for making the drive to come and fill in Saturday and Sunday for Kelli after she got sick! We trial with Jeff all the time and it was very nice to earn a MACH under him!
Zhora Friday Jumpers (part 2 of QQ #39, second place, 14 points):
Nina Friday Jumpers (part 2 of QQ # 15, first place, 17 points):
Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Q, second place, 12 points):
Nina Saturday Jumpers (Q, first place, 15 points):
Zhora Saturday Standard (NQ but nice run):
Nina Saturday Standard (NQ but nice run, naughty table!):
Zhora Sunday Jumpers (part 1 of MACH2, second place, 12 points, just ONE SECOND behind Nina!):
Nina Sunday Jumpers (Q, first place, 13 points):
Zhora Sunday Standard (MACH2!!! First place, 27 points, the ONLY 8″ dog to qualify):
Nina Sunday Standard (NQ but really, really nice run, I needed to show more movement towards the table, I asked her to lie down at the start, she said “I don’t think I will”):
MACH2 Zhora – there was hugging!: