Seattle Kennel Club, Graham, Wa.
May 22,23/04
Grace was entered in Saturday only, and had two runs. The day was really miserable, with rain most of the day. Since Grace is in Novice Standard, she was in the second last class of the day, she had to wait for 8 hours before she had a chance to run. Luckily, there was a break in the weather and she had a chance to run when the rain had stopped. Right after her Standard course she ran her first Open Jumpers course, and after she finished that course the skies opened up and it started to pour rain again!!
This was a happy run for Grace, where her only problem was doing a sit on the Table. She took forever it seemed, even jumping off the table once to check out something outside the course, but Heather called her back, and after an eternity, she happily went on to complete her run. Grace earned her first Qualifying score in Novice Standard Preferred with this run, and placed second. She seems to be having more and more fun as she competes, and her speed is improving, along with her comfort in working on both sides of Heather.
This was Grace's first Open JWW run. She did better than she ever has in competition. She completed the course with only one refusal at the weave poles (12 poles), and ran the remainder of the course with some speed and lots of enthusiasm. Everyone who watched was sure that Grace had a Qualifying score, which would have given her first Double Q. When the score sheets came out, there was big disappointment, because Grace was over the course time and didn't have the required score of 85 to Qualify!!
Setting the course times is the judges responsibility, and this Judge on this weekend, consistently had what is called a "short wheel"; which means that she measured the course much smaller than the path the dogs actually ran. So in this instance, as with all the courses during the weekend, the qualifying times (which are based on the judges measurement of the course) was perhaps 10 seconds lower than how most judges would have measured the course. The distance involved is 20 yards at the Open Level. Another Judge on the same course and Grace would have Q'd!! That's the way it goes!!!