Doin’ the work

And that’s an OA wrap!!

It wasn’t clean, but it’s done. We’re out of, as Melissa calls it, Open purgatory. During the briefing the judge asked, “who’s running this class for the first time?” One hand went up. Then he asked, “who’s been running this class a long time?” My hand went up. 🙂

He went on to explain that Novice is meant to be (relatively) easy. Handling Novice courses is meant to be (relatively) easy. Not so with Open. Handling and teamwork matter in Open. It’s the class that prepares a team to run Excellent. I ♥ that! Great perspective on the value of Open.

I’m fairly green in the Standard ring. Edie and I were Master Jumpers; we didn’t run Standard. It is a different ball game.

Last August, in our first covid-style trial, Zopa Qd in Open Jumpers to finish her OAJ title, along with back-to-back Qs in Open Standard. A few brave clubs held trials over these past months with tweaked formats and run orders to keep low #s of humans in a facility at any given time (25 people initially). Clubs have been scheduling classes so the same height runs jumpers and standard, then leaves the building. Rather than sit out in a parking lot for hours, Open Standard became my focus. Get out of that class and then we could run Excellent, both classes.

For months I tried for that Q. After deciding to embrace Open Standard as our Forever Class, I revisited past strategy. Establish a goal for each run. My goal this run was to keep her off the table as we left the teeter and off the a-frame as we entered and exited the pinwheel. My awesome teammate saved our ass as I bobbled entering the pinwheel. We were together until it was time to actually take the a-frame. As I did a not-connected-enough bc to the a-frame, she read that differently and took a wrong course jump. She did a great job of rejoining our run and reading my free-style handling move to get her on the a-frame. A front-cross on the fly there would have prevented the refusal call. But, hey! We did it! OA!!! Not perfect, but we’re a team!!! Bonus? Even with the bobbles and the sticky teeter we were 2.58 yps and16 seconds under sct. Woohoo!!

Review…front cross timing before the teeter was good!…stickiness on the teeter seems to be from noticing the judge…I was in a bad position for the first jump after the teeter, which created me trying to step into her line for the panel (she saved our ass with her rear cross!! good girlie!!)…my bc in the pinwheel was well timed, plus good follow thru with connection coming out of the bc…our table is reflecting actually training it :-)….my follow thru with the bc before the a-frame needed to be stronger…a front cross after the wrong course jump would have worked much better than my free-style ‘cross’ 🙂 …she even hopped a pole or two!

Our Forever Class :-)

Embracing our Forever Class! Along with Geoff and one of his Papillons. 🙂

It’s been ten months since trials started back up. Here and there, covid style. We ran Open jumpers and standard at that first trial Two trials, back-to-back, all in three hours one morning. Lots of runs in a short time, but WOW. Loved not sitting around at a trial, all day long, two days in a row. …like back in the Old Days. That morning Zopa earned her OAJ title. Which, no matter how various trials were covid-style arranged, meant we’d be sitting out in the parking lot in order to run both Open standard and Excellent jumpers. Ugh.

In order to come and go, rather than park and wait, I began entering one run a day. Focused on getting that last Q in Open standard, that’s the class I initially entered. Sometimes those runs were in the morning. Sometimes they were mid-afternoon. I really like running in the morning and having the rest of the day free. A light bulb went off! The running order is usually posted in the premium. Sometimes Ex/Masters jumpers runs first thing in the morning. Gonna switch up my strategy and enter which ever class runs first.

I love running jumpers. We’ve ran it twice ??? since last August. On Fridays when Excellent/Masters only were eligible to run. We nailed it both times. One more Q and we’ll be running Masters. I’m way more comfortable running jumpers, surely thanks to the Novice Queen Supreme quest with Edie. Years ago someone said jumpers tests one’s handling skills while standard tests one’s training skills.

This run has moments of brilliance. And moments of not-so brilliant. Like my handling choice from the teeter down the finish line. Awk!!! I should have gone with my initial idea to run that line all the way with her on my right side. My dog is consistently running fast. Super fun!! But really screws up my timing. Front cross was waaaaaaay too late. Slomo shows she was focused on the a-frame from takeoff at #2. Had I noted that possibility, I would have stayed super connected and used “Z, Z, Z” to help her away from obstacle focus. Happy enough with her table performance…much improvement. She remained focused, but sticky to leave. Not sure if the shake-off was due to the judge’s presence or Zopa’s wrong course.

The best run!!

We’re embracing Open Standard, our Forever Class. 😉 12 seconds under sct. Wow. On fire Z!! Lori loved how I sent her in order to be in place for that blind going into the pinwheel. Zopa saw a yellow sandbag outside the ring – and I didn’t help by being close to the jump. She veered off just enough to miss the jump. No way was I going back to fix it. No way in hell. My dog was on fire!!

Excellent!

Jumpers run on Friday, our first jww run in nearly a year.

Woohoo!! Q #2 for AXJ.
The following information is being sent to the AKC for
Kunza Zopa at FFT MeLou (Zopa) – NP31160201
23-Apr-2021
JWW-EX-REG – 8 Inch – Judge: Cheri Tyre‐Roberts
Distance: 155 yards – SCT: 51 seconds
Score: 100(Q) – Time: 50.29 seconds – 1st place