Monday - Heading Towards Home

Monday morning we got packed up pretty quickly.  I wanted to take a picture of the dogs by the Spruce Meadows sign, but that wasn't very successful.  The sign was in the shade, and it was too big.

In front of the well known (okay, you might have watched horses jumping over it) Canada jump, where the podium from the awards the night before was still there.

And here we are with Christine and Kozmo and his 3rd place rosette and his four individual class placement ribbons

And the process of getting 6 people and 6 dogs all posed

And the result.  On the left back are super volunteers, Marilyn, Brian and Lynda.  They worked three days, Marilyn and Lynda as gate stewards (I had the pleasure of Lynda stewarding our group for the whole time) and Brian as course builder and ring master.  In fact our club had two more people, Lea and Laurel, who also volunteered all weekend.  As far as I know, Lea stewarded the whole time, and Laurel switched between gate steward and timer/scribe.  Pretty amazing that out of 6 rings, 3 1/2 of them were stewarded by people from the same little club.  For those of you that don't know, the ring steward is responsible for getting the competitors into the ring on time and in the right order, plus sometimes dealing with issues from competitors.

The scary bison was finally conquered.  Luna really wasn't thrilled about getting too close.  Someone told us to back her into position, which worked.  The evening before I had taken all three over there, and they were barking and dancing around at the end of their leashes like it was the scariest thing in the world.  Wish I had been able to film that:)

And then we took a stroll around the grounds.  Beautiful place, and visitor and dog friendly.  Seems you can just drive in and wander around.

Beautiful horse statues on the lawns

And real ones too

Finally we got on the road about noon.

Heading back through the foothills to the Rockies

Another stop in  Canmore for the essentials, which included exercising, and then cooling off, the dogs

And more impressive scenery

We did eventually run into some crummy weather.  Torrential rain and wind one spot coming through the mountains. 

We had been lucky in Calgary.  Mostly sun and about 25 degrees max.  A bit of drizzle on Sunday morning, and then it cleared up.  A couple of distant thunderstorms that had Jake trembling.  My poor sensitive little dog:(

Thankfully the blueberry cannons that we have going off near us at home don't seem to bother him.

We stayed in Revelstoke at the same campsite as before, and it rained all night.

In the morning the igloo was gone, well nothing left but a ring where it had been stuck to the roof.

I guess rain is it's downfall.

Spruce Meadows Part Two

Sunday morning came around too fast, and I almost slept in!  My cell phone is so ancient that it doesn't seem to have an alarm, or I couldn't find one anyway.  I usually wake early, so didn't think it was going to be a problem, but I guess I kept dozing off, and it was the PA system that woke me up.  Just threw on some clothes and headed off to the walk through.  This time I figured there would be no problem as probably the running order would be reversed the second day, which it was, and Jake was the 9th to last dog in, so at least 2 1/2 hours between him and the first dog.   Larry walked them and got them fed and brought them down to the shade tents before 8. 

The first run was Gamblers.  Lots of points available in the opening, Jake got 49, compared to 36 the day before.  A do-able gamble.  Larry was stood in the corner filming, and guess who Jake saw/smelled as we were going around:(  I also swear he wasted some time looking at Larry in the closing, but the video only shows a quick glance.  Funny how things, when you are running, seem to take up valuable time, and yet when you see it on video, it is almost unnoticeable.  Anyway, the gamble didn't quite play out as I envisioned it, but he did it....or did he?

Well the judge gave the thumbs up for the gamble, but....the buzzer went before he broke the light barrier.  People on the sidelines thought it was all good.  But, if you noticed my reaction at the end, I KNEW!  That timing beam had to be broken before the time ran out, and because I heard the buzzer, I knew it hadn't been.  Damn!

Yep, .02 of a freaking second over time,  which meant we didn't get the 35 bonus points.  Bummer:(

Larry said after that lots of times he thinks about which way the wind is blowing when he is standing watching, but didn't this time.  I had noticed the whole weekend that Jake seemed to want to know where we both were, in fact all three dogs were quite concerned if one of us headed off without them, well other than when they were in the shade tent.

So next up was Standard.  I seemed to have a total memory lapse where Jake crossed back into the first tunnel, did a late front cross and got a refusal there because he had already crossed the plane of the tunnel mouth before going into it.  The rest was okay until.....

Yep, here we go again, just like Regionals.  Watching that video, it almost makes me think that he thinks it is the teeter, and is trying to make it tip (just looking at his body position), and then bailing because it won't.  What I don't understand is that he is right at the top, and would have been able to see the top plank extending out, so should have realized that it was the dogwalk.  My first thoughts were that it had some weird vibration at that point, and he is very movement sensitive....but I don't really know, and if anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.  He had actually been over that dogwalk the day before in the other Standard run, but would have been coming from the other direction.  I did hear that a couple of other dogs coming after him, slightly bigger dogs than Jake, did react a bit weirdly at that same point.  Some people have said that they think this particular brand of equipment is a bit flimsy.  Who knows, but very frustrating.  I had already decided that after two attempts, we would just move on, and of course racked up multiple penalty points there.

And I did fall apart after that run, yep, shed some tears, and took off by myself down to the off-leash to play with Jake.  If someone had come up to me right after that run and commiserated with me, I would have been a total blubbering basket case.   One thing I never feel is any anger at Jake, he does the best he can, and I can't ask any more than that.  I do feel frustrated, just at the whole situation, but never 'blame' the dog.

So it was just about the end of the day.  One last chance.  By that point I had no great expectations, in a way I just wanted it to be over.  The final Jumpers run. 

Larry had decided that it would be best if he was right there at the gate with me, so that Jake KNEW where he was.  So I went in, and then had to wait quite a while for the ring crew to raise all the jump heights, as Jake was the first 22" dog to go in.  One thing I can say is that he has a GREAT start line stay.  And notice how he does one last check in with Larry:)

  Oops, forgot to trim that video, and the 'Nationalas' spelling mistake at the top of it will irk me, but I'm too lazy to go back and redo the whole process.

But, but.....YAY!  A clean run!  And in the end we placed 7th in that Jumpers run out of 25 dogs, and got a lovely rosette.

You don't know how nice it was to finish up on a really positive note:)

Good boy, Jake!

And here's some of Susan Garrett's runs.  For those of you who don't know of her, she makes her living from all things agility, and she and her dogs are some of the top agility teams in the world.  

The dogs actually seemed much faster in real life.

I'm stood watching behind the back right corner of the ring in the steeplechase run (black tank with my arms crossed)

Afterwards we all sat around and waited for the awards, and waited, and waited.......

Earlier in the afternoon we had strolled past the vendor booths.  A ton of doggy stuff to spend your money on.

I got a kick out of this sign.  Maybe something we should have on our gate, considering  how our Luna(tic) can be...

Finally all the awards were announced.  Christine and Kozmo had placed 3rd overall in their division, and got a huge rosette:)

Sunday was also our 29th wedding anniversary, congrats to us I guess!

And you know what was really the most amazing thing about the whole event.  There was a lady there, Shirley, who was 81 years old, and she ran three dogs.  So that meant she ran 9 runs each day (Sat and Sun), plus she made it to the steeplechase final on Saturday, so make that 10 runs on Saturday, after running some steeplechase on Friday.  A lot of people were saying that they want to grow up and be like Shirley:)  And she placed 9th, 14th and 17th in the dog's respective groups.  Wow!

And if you like to play around with numbers, like me....

Well if this had been Regionals, Jake wouldn't even have got enough points to qualify for Nationals, but if he got the points at Nationals that he did at Regionals, he would have finished 10th at Nationals, and just squeaked for the last of one of those big rosettes:)  A whole bunch of 'what ifs':)

Spruce Meadows Part One

We got to Spruce Meadows about 5pm on Thursday, after losing an hour with the time change.  All the RV's were parked in a big grassy field not too far away from the competition rings.  I didn't think to take a picture until half the rv's had pulled out on Monday morning.  That's our little truck and trailer on the very right.

Friday was an easy day for us.  I had only entered Jake in the 'warm up games' which basically meant I had paid $5 each to take him in the ring twice, where there was a full set of equipment and we had 2 minutes each time to do whatever we liked.  So I did a bit of a course and ran him over the dog walk and teeter a few times, with no problems.  Yay, so far so good!  This was equipment from the same manufacturer that had supplied the equipment for Regionals.

Saturday was when the real Nationals competitions began.

So bright and early on Saturday morning, the rings were open from 6:15 to 7:15am for us to walk the three courses.  Standard, Gamblers and Jumpers.  They were late getting started, which worked well for me, as I didn't get there at 6:15, thinking I didn't need an hour anyway.  I had taken the dogs out for a quick pee, and then left them with Larry who wasn't up yet.  I said I'd be back to have a bit of breakfast before I went in my class.  So I walked the courses, then discovered that Jake was put in the wrong height group, and went and got that sorted out.  That was when I realized that Jake was in the first group to run, and he was the 9th dog in. Then it was just about time for the general briefing, and then straight to the ring we were running in first.  There we had a 5 min. walk through of that course, and since there were so many dogs, the Specials dog's handlers walked first, and then we were supposed to get our dogs while the Veteran's dog's handlers walked the course. 

So much for getting back for some breakfast before our first run.  Well at least Jake had had his.

I set off running back to the RV lot, taking the path from the ring to the left.  Got to the trailer and the door was locked.  No sign of Larry or the dogs.  I thought that either he was out walking them or had taken them to the shade tent area, so ran down the RV parking and along the fence to the off leash and then back to the ring.  By this time I am starting to panic.  Told the gate steward who is a member of the same club as me (loads of people drove long distances just to volunteer) that I couldn't find my dog.  Then got to thinking that maybe Larry had fallen back asleep, and I had inadvertantly locked the door, and that they were all in the trailer.  I had only turned the handle, and not knocked.  So I set off running again.  Just to clarify, I am NOT a runner.  I suppose I'm in better shape than some, but I have never liked running or jogging as a form of exercise, and here I was running as best I could in a panic.  Back to the trailer I went, and I banged and rattled the door, and nothing!  Back down the RV lot, trying to see if Larry was beyond the cars in the competitor parking, ran back past the off leash as it was behind a tall, hard to see through, fence.  Still no Larry or dogs.  Back to the ring I went, puffing and panting and sweating buckets.  I figured by this time they would have already got to my position in the lineup, and since I wasn't there, I would be out of luck.  Thankfully there was some kind of holdup, and they hadn't started yet.  I am frantically scanning around trying to spot Larry, feeling sick by this point.  I had basically given up, thinking I was just going to have to take a big fat zero for the first run.  So I decided that I might as well just go back to the trailer and wait, so I set off running again.  This time as I got out into the RV field I could see dogs by the trailer, and Larry met me at the door and said 'Christine's got him'.  Fellow club member Christine, since she wasn't running until much later, had joined the hunt.  She got to the trailer just after Larry had returned, and had run back with Jake.  So I set off again, sobbing as I ran this time, and met them at the ring.  Then I collapsed on the grass:( 

No time for much recovery though, there was one more dog to go in before Jake, and since it was Jumpers, they are usually only around 30 seconds per run.  Everyone is telling me to take a deep breath.  I take my time getting into the ring, trying to even remember the darn course.  Anyway, we run it, Jake takes a wrong tunnel entry, a simple thing that shouldn't have happened, but my exhausted body was probably facing in that direction.  So we came out of that run with 20 faults, and 55 points.  Certainly better than zero.

I got over it pretty quick, really, an agility competition is pretty small potatoes in the bigger scheme of things, but I told Larry I was going to milk the story for all the entertainment value I could, so he'd better get used to hearing it!  He said he was wondering what was taking me so long to get back, so thought he had better take the dogs for a poop stroll, and was off on the other side of the competitor parking, probably hidden behind the trees.  Anyway, we did get it sorted out how things were going to work for Sunday morning:)

Oh yeah, I paced the distance from the trailer to the ring, and it was pretty close to 1/4 mile.  So with the detours to the offleash area, I figured I had covered getting close to 2 miles on the three rounds.

Amazing what you can do when you have to!

I was pretty stiff the next day though.

 

The next class was Gamblers.  Hard to get a lot of points in the opening, and the closing was hard too, which we did not get.  Not that Jake wasn't capable of getting it another time.... Well I did say I was going to Calgary to have some fun.  Generally, what you get out of something is related to the effort you put into it, and I certainly haven't put effort into any agility training lately.  Does it sound like I'm making excuses, well yeah, probably...

Certainly see a ton of things to work on when I watch this.  He wasn't going to do that teeter without me there holding his hand, I mean paw...

The Standard run didn't go any better.  TWO! off courses:(  The first one was my fault.  Forgot to make sure he didn't get sucked into that tunnel, and then not sure what happened when he decided to duck behind me and hit the a-frame instead of going into the weaves.  Susan Garrett et al would be horrified at him ignoring the reinforcement plane and him going behind me like that.  Probably having taught him a 'behind' command comes back to bite ME in the behind sometimes.  Speaking of Susan Garrett, wow, loved seeing her and her dogs run in person.  Talk about fast, and accurate.

Well I'm having trouble finding that Standard run.  I can never remember the steps I have to take to get my videos in a format that I can upload to Youtube, so I do a lot of trial and error and somewhere I have lost that video.  Well I 'moved' it, and now I can't find it!  So maybe later I will post it, not that you are missing anything anyway.

Hornblower, you would have loved it at the Nationals!  Well not sure if that dog/handler connection after their run was any more obvious, but the spectators got to sit close to the action!  They were on a small hill, with benches, and in the shade and there was a great person on the PA system giving lots of information as to what was happening in the rings in front of them, and explaining how the different runs were run and judged.  This is the only picture I have.  See that white fence on the right, the spectators were between that and the white building, in the shade.  The three regular rings were about 10 feet on this side of that fence.  It was great!

Those were our chairs in that nice shady spot at the front of the photo.

Behind those trees in the center of the photo above was a big open courtyard area.  Those that wanted to were able to kennel their dogs in a couple of the huge green and white roofed horse barns.  We were in a shade tent, which Christine and Kozmo (resting up for their next run) kindly chose to share with us.

 Out in that courtyard was a really great fountain, that we were allowed to cool our dogs off in.  Luna wasn't too sure about it.  I have just noticed the W on the side of the wall, which was the west side, so I'm guessing  the four points of the compass were on the wall of the pool.

There was a long row of horse wash stalls, and Luna much preferred to cool off with the hose!

Saturday night we gathered with fellow clubbers and had a barbeque.  Great times!

It gets cold in Calgary in the evening, and then it was off to bed so that we could get up at the crack of dawn again.  The first day was a bit disappointing, well the points I had managed to salvage so far, so was hoping for a better day on Sunday. 

The Journey There

We never seem to be able to get off early in the morning when we go on holiday, just too many last minute things to do.  Just trying to get it all set up with the animals and the plants is a job on it's own.  Anyway, we finally left about 10:30 am.

After heading to the end of the Fraser Valley, which isn't a whole lot above sea level, we start up the Coquihalla Hwy, which is a long climb uphill.  One of the landmarks on that highway is the snowshed, which protects the travellers from snow that rumbles down that hillside in winter.

And up near the top is this spectacular hunk of rock called Zopkios Ridge

And here we are at the top, after climbing 4000 ft.  All these photos were taken from the truck cab, so that, and the smoke in the air from numerous forest fires in the province can take the blame for the not so great quality of photos.

After the summit there is a long hill down, and then another long climb back up, and then another long hill down to the town of Merritt.  We stopped there at the Tourist Info and stretched our legs, took the dogs for a walk, etc.

After you leave Merritt, there is another long climb up, and we end up even higher than before.  Surrey  Lake summit 1444 metres.

After dropping back down into Kamloops, the drive is flat for a while, in the semi arid interior of the province.

Just north of Salmon Arm, a bear ran across the highway and into the trees on the side of the road.   On the whole trip I saw two bears, two deer, two bighorn sheep and a coyote.

Another pee break at Craigellachie, at the rest stop.  This is where the last spike was driven to connect the railway coming from the east and the west of the country.

The dogs weren't too thrilled about posing here, as they were on an open metal grate.

We continued on to Revelstoke and stayed in a campsite at Williamson Lake.  Some lucky people got to camp right along the lake. 

We were cheek by jowl with the other trailers.  The showers were hot, and the price was decent, so we didn't mind for one night.  The dogs got some swimming in just out of the park boundary, and then we took a walk down a trail.  One of those that you aren't quite sure where it is going, and it was dusk, and I am thinking BEARS! so finally we made our way out to the road and back to the campsite.  I had seen a pile of bear poop, and it wasn't anywhere near as big as the one back home.  Add to that the mosquitoes that were attacking, and we were glad to get back.

The next morning we were off about 8:30. 

The scenery was spectacular.  It really reminded me that we need to drive through other parts of the province every few years just to remind ourselves how wonderful it really is.  Not that I would want to live there, but sure spectacular to look at.

Here there are chainlink panels hanging to help keep rocks from bouncing onto the road

And a fairly new bridge just out of Golden

Jake was a little p*ssed that we wouldn't throw anything for him into that racing river

We saw waaaaay too much of this guy.  That pile of gravel he's shovelling never seemed to get any smaller.

But if you were working there, you sure couldn't complain about the scenery

We lucked out and got the right of way on a one lane stretch of road.  The back up coming the other way was about three miles long.

And now we really felt like we were getting somewhere.

We went into Banff to get something quick to eat and some gas, but it was impossible to find anything.  Talk about a tourist town.  The streets were packed, no where to park.  The only gas station we saw was full, and no where easy to get in to eat.  In the end we just pulled out and headed on to Canmore, which wasn't too far down the road.

We did see lots of these things under construction though.

They are wildlife overpasses.  After a few years trees and shrubbery grow up, and it is a way for the larger wildlife to cross the highway.  Since there are 8 ft fences all along the side of the highway, that is really the only way for them to cross.  

More spectacular scenery

And then we stopped at the Tourist Info at Canmore.  Bathrooms, sani-dump for the trailer, dog area with room for a soccer game, and a shallow pond for cooling off across the road.  Next door was a gas station and McDonald's, and the great scenery was a bonus.  Could have done without the mosquitoes though.

Pretty soon we were out of the mountains and into the foothills.  The canola fields were amazing.

And here it is!

If any of you follow the horse jumping world, you would know that many international jumping events are held here.

The igloo survived the trip.  Amazing, nearly 1000 km, and up to 100 kph, and it looks pretty well the same as when we left home!

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the time at Spruce Meadows.

Unfortunately the agility didn't go well:(