CATS CPE Trial, September 18, 2011

On Sunday I entered Spot in the CATS CPE trial at Wheelock Park in Keene, NH. We actually drove up Saturday afternoon to check out the location and set up our tent. We stayed overnight in Brattleboro, VT. The venue was really nice, on a baseball field, with two rings and plenty of room for tents. Also was great to be there with agility friends Marjorie, Julie, Nancy, Mary, Juli and Patricia.

Spot was entered in Standard 3, Colors 3, Jackpot 3, Snooker 4 and Jumpers 4. He Q'd in Standard, Colors and Snooker.

First class was Standard. We did the weaves on one pass, but I really had to baby him through them. We had one bobble at the A frame. There was an obstacle discrimination with the tunnel under the A frame, and I pulled Spot to the right for the A frame, but then he actually didn't take it, and ran by it, then took the tunnel underneath. That was ok, because coming out of the tunnel up the A frame was a nice approach, and he handled it fine. We got a 5 pt fault and were 4.8 seconds over time, so we were super close to not Q'ing. If we hadn't had that bobble we would have been fine. I think I just overhandled that part.

Next was Jackpot, which was non-traditional, with 3 possible gambles. We could even do all 3 gambles if we wanted to! I had a good plan, but I added in a tunnel at the last minute, and then didn't have enough momentum to get the gamble before the time was up.

Next was Colors 3. The opening was tricky. It was a jump to a tunnel, the they were kind of parallel. So I lead out into a moving front cross and it worked well. After the tunnel, the choice was A frame directly in front of the tunnel, or a jump to the side. I wanted the jump, because the end of the course was much better than the A frame course. I did a front cross out of the tunnel to bring Spot over to the jump, but he didn't want to! He started towards the A frame, and I called him, so he stopped and looked at me, then looked at the A frame, then finally took the jump. We did the weaves ok, again I really had to baby him. But then the end of the course was a line of 5 jumps and he really picked up speed for the finish.

Next was Snooker level 4 in the other ring. We had to wait around a while for this one, just because the lower level ring had fewer runs and was going much faster. The Snooker course was awesome for us because there were no weaves! The 7 was a combo of a tunnel and a double, which was tough because you can only take the double one way. Some people did try it, but I thought the entrance to the tunnel was ugly, so I avoided it. I was able to find a line from a red over the 5 jump, to another red, which made for a fast opening. Then we did a front cross over the 2-jump 6 combo. One of the jumps for 6 was also a red, so we took that again, then the 5 again, and headed to the 2 jump. For some reason Spot balked at the 2 jump and I was worried he wouldn't take it, or would back-jump it, but he got over it. 3 and 4 were tunnels, and then 5 and 6 were a threadle. We got through the first half of 7 before time was up and ended up with 39 points and Q. I have to say that was a really fun run.

Last run of the day was Jumpers 4. Since the lower level ring had finished, they set this up while Snooker was finishing, so we got to walk pretty quickly and get going. This course was very twisty, with a pinwheel and a funky opening. I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do, but I ended up doing a serpentine opening. Spot read it fine, but then didn't take the third jump, so I brought him back, but it seemed to sap his energy and momentum. He walked through the rest of the course and we ran out of time. Oh well.

Spot was really tired by the end of the day. When I put him in his crate, he was already sleeping as I loaded up the car! I think 4 runs a day is his limit now. I need to figure out how to get his Standard 2 finished so we can try to enter for Nationals!