"The Streak" Is Over!!
Western Washington Weimaramer Trial Dec 10,11, 2005
The Streak ended on Saturday December 10th
We did Agility on the weekend, and The Streak finally came to an end. It was an indoor trial on a hard surface with gravelly dirt on it. Al just didn’t like running on it. It seemed to hurt his feet, and he just didn’t run hard. When he turned he would slip as the pebbles slid on the harder surface below. The pebbles were sharp and small enough that they hurt his feet. It was like he was running to avoid stepping on it if he could.
We had a chance to salvage the streak as, at the finish line of our JWW run , Al over-jumped over the triple and cleared the beam from the electronic timers and the clock kept running and running. Finally somebody hit the stop button. The judge came over, and said I could run for time or take Standard course time. I said we’d run again, so 25 dogs later we ran again. Al’s first run was at 31.2 seconds, and his second run was 32.78 seconds. He liked the surface less the second time around, and he was 1.5 seconds slower on his second run!! He was hating it!! We should have run the course around 28 seconds and Al just couldn’t get into it because it just didn’t feel good.
So we had a good bunch of fast runs. None of them were stinkers. The streak ended at 23 placements in a row, when we had a Q in Jumpers with Weaves!!
The Streak started on June 10th 2005. It lasted exactly 6 months to the day!!
These are the placements (in chronological order) that constituted “The Streak”.
4,2,3,4,2,1,3,1,2,3,1,2,2,2,2,3,2,3,3,2,3,2,2
The Rest of the Week-End
Even though “The Streak” ended, some good things happened.
Al also earned his 1000th MACH point this weekend. That was good.
My friend Heidi Longerbill earned her MACH with her Standard Poodle Winnie.
Al started a new Streak with a 3rd Placement in JWW on Sunday. Even though he hated the surface he managed to get around fast enough to place. This trial had Secretaries that always insist on running JWW first!! I just hate that, so there was Al hating the running surface, and me hating running at 8AM after getting up at 4:45 AM to drive to the trial. 2 hrs of driving, cold weather, and JWW as soon as you hit the ground is not the way to start your day as far as I am concerned. Grrrrr!!
What I was hoping for was a Double Q, which would have happened both days, if Al had a handler that did a better job. I sent him over a wrong jump on Saturday (after doing all the hardest parts on a very difficult Standard course). When I heard all the groans and aawwh’s from the bleachers, I knew that I had messed up!!
On Sunday, I sent him out to a jump that he had to pivot around, and come back to me, and Al did every thing I asked him to do. He went out, (“out..over..LEFT”) turned left after landing, swung out past the jump and had almost committed to the correct jump, and then I messed up something that is almost a guarantee to go correctly, I turned my shoulders and took a step just a bit too early. Had I been a millisecond later in my rotation to go the reverse direction back over the next jump, Al would have done it perfectly. As it turned out I rushed it. I didn’t wait, and he saw me turn into the jump before he had committed to going around and past it, and then Al back-jumped the jump. He did it perfectly!! I didn’t!!
So without the two stupid handler errors on the weekend, Al would have at least gotten a Double Q or two.
We also did International Sweepstakes Class Standard on Saturday, and Al placed 2nd. On Sunday in ISC JWW he placed 2nd again.
So even though “The Streak” ended, we Qualified 4 out of 6 times with 3 placements. Al had two 2nd placements, and one 3rd placement.