Oh Yeah, You Blend

Our dear friend Sherry Jefferson was the judge this weekend and her courses were awesome. Zhora earned QQ #52 and Nina! Nina earned QQ #19!!! Video camera issues mean I missed some runs :(.We had 19 1/2 today but the deceptively tricky standard course got us (especially since I didn’t handle it the way I’d planned to). Nina was 3/3 in Time 2 Beat AND 3/3 in Jumpers, PLUS she earned another Master FAST Q. Nina’s best qualifying weekend to date! Zhora was awesome but caffeinated! Overall a very, very fun trial. Oddly, I am much more sanguine about sitting on 19 QQ’s than I was on 18. Now I believe that MACH will actually happen. Maybe next trial, maybe next year. It IS Nina after all, and no matter what, it’s amazing to be here with her! I am SO happy with how they are both running, they are both so eager and joyful about playing this game with me, that’s worth 20 MACHs to me.

Nina Friday FAST (76 points):

Zhora Friday Standard (QQ 53, second place to world team Keebler, 4.101 YPS, 32 points):

Nina Friday Time 2 Beat (Q, first place, 10 points):

Zhora Friday Jumpers (QQ 53, 4th place, 5.085 YPS, 20 points, one of her best runs to date):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Q, 4.943 YPS, 20 points, LOVE her drive!!!):

Nina Saturday Time 2 Beat (Q, first place, 10 points, her happy bouncing around at the start line is the best thing):

Nina Saturday Standard (QQ #19, second place to world team Keebler, 4.17 YPS, 32 points, good good girlie, this course was so fun):

Zhora Saturday Standard (NQ, should have led out further so I could get the front cross in and keep her out of the tunnel!):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (Q, fourth place thanks to wrong turn, 4.789 YPS, 18 points):

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (Q, third place, 4.805 YPS, 18 points):

Nina Sunday Time 2 Beat (Q, first place, 10 points):

Nina Sunday Standard (NQ, not-MACH (love my awesome friends all groaning when we NQ), intended to front cross after a-frame, should have…that set her up for the bar down on the awkward rear cross and off course tunnel):

Zhora Sunday Standard (NQ, fixed the near off-course at a-frame with Nina with a front cross before the table, remembered to cross after a-frame but stupidly did a BLIND cross, showing extension and forward direction, thus sending her towards the OFF COURSE TUNNEL again…also she ran right by the final tunnel because she was in a hurry to get cookies. And I LOVE that you can see her interrupt her regularly scheduled barking on the table when she recognizes Sherry’s voice and turns to look at her):

Our second time at the Sportsplex and much better than last time. Zhora earned QQ # 52 on Saturday, and both girls set career-high points on Oksana Syrkin’s awesome Standard course on Saturday (the dogs could see the running lines perfectly and just ran flat out the whole way). It was hot and sticky and while Zhora managed to be the only 8″ dog to qualify on Mary Mullen’s challenging Sunday Standard course, stupid handler errors cost us in JWW with both dogs.

Nina Friday JWW (Q, first place, 23 points, 5.52 YPS):

Zhora Saturday Standard (QQ #52, second place, career-high 37 points, 4.57 YPS):

Nina Saturday Standard (Q, first place, career-high 39 points, 4.82 YPS):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (QQ #52, second place, 17 points, a bit distracted still in the JWW ring but getting better):

Zhora Sunday Standard (Q, first place, only 8″ qualifier, 32 points, 4.068 YPS, quite a challenging course!):

Zhora Sunday JWW (NQ, she is very distracted by the crating by the ring and I needed to support the tunnel much more than I did, you can hear Nina barking, the crating is way too close to the ring here for my liking):

Nina Sunday JWW (NQ, nice run, I overhandled and got in her way and caused the bar down, you can hear Zhora barking, I only had 5 dogs between them and she had only just finished running and got chucked in the crate with a cookie and a promise for more when I got done running Nina!)):