Kiln Agility Trial - The "If Only" Trial

Lucky's AX title ribbons

Maxie: 6 runs, 1 Q, 1st place, 20 MACH Points
Lucky Lucy: 6 runs, 1 Q, 2nd place, NEW TITLE AX

"If Only" moments are those we all tend to review and review and kick ourselves for. My weekend was full of them.

To start with, 12 runs and only 2 Q's.  Have I ever done this bad?  And almost every NQ was only one tiny mistake, or in Lucky's case, no mistakes just exceeding course time.  If only I had made one small adjustment this way or that . . . . . on each run.

If only we had left home 45 minutes earlier or not taken the scenic route to Kiln, we wouldn't have had to pitch the camper in a downpour.

If only we hadn't pitched the camper towards one end of the mounded RV slot, we wouldn't have been in a ditch 3" deep in water.

If only the clip I was using to hold my hair back during Maxie's 2nd run on Friday hadn't started falling out at jump 14. In the split second it took me to decide whether to grab it or let it fall, I lost my concentration, handled jump 15 as if it were 16, and went to 17.  Maxie ran fast and perfectly, but we missed a QQ.  If only I had used a different barette. . . . If only I had worn my cap.. . .  If only I had tied all my hair back in a twist the clip would have held . . . . if only I had let the damn thing fall without wondering whether the judge would make me stop to pick it up.  I flubbed up.
If only I had the endless energy these other competitors seem to have, I could have joined the RV'ers for their Friday night communal meal, but I was too exhausted.  Saturday night I mustered enough energy, brought whatever I could scrape up (cantaloupe, herbal cheese), and enjoyed their terriki chicken on a stick, grilled shrimp, shishkabob, big salad and some champagne.  It was very relaxing.  Everyone was animated and friendly. The talk was all about lure coursing, hunting and herding dog training.  I got on the RV email list to help plan future meals.

If only I had taken the time to kill the wasp nest I suspected was in the eves of my camper before leaving home, But I was in a hurry, feeling lucky . . . . . being stupid.  I paid the price on Saturday afternoon while tying my tarp to a corner post.  I got stung, within 3 hours my hand swole up so you couldn't see my knuckles or wrist bone, and the Benedryl I took that night and the next morning gave heart palpitations all day Sunday.  Fortunately, my RV neighbor had some wasp spray and I used it to knock out the nest.  But  somehow 6 groggy wasps found their way inside, over the next few hours I found them crawling on the walls and sheets, had to squish each of them with a towel, inspect every inch of the camper carefully, and now I have to set it up when I get home and caulk those holes.

If only I had taken Maxie to do his business before his last run on Sunday instead of volunteering to work the novice class, he wouldn't have gone behind the tunnel and peed, and got us whistled off.  Not a great way to end the weekend.

TRIAL NOTES:
The trial must have been advertised locally, because several observers showed up.  I met a very interesting elderly gentleman in a scooter, who trains search and rescue dogs in Slidell.  He was the first soldier in Vietnam with a rescue dog, and very active in changing the military policy of leaving war dogs behind.  It's a cause I believe in, and offered to help him spiff up his website.  We'll see where that takes us.

All weekend between runs one lady laid back in her recliner and played with her Apple iPad 3G.  She's got perfect internet connection, can surf the web all she wants, handle her emails, read books, compose, upload docs, take photos and videos, stream movies, etc.  Way out here in the boonies!  It's just a huge iPhone, except it can't make phone calls. I am pee green with envy.  If only I had $900 to burn!  Not having an internet connection for 4 days sucks!

My air conditioner struggles to keep the camper cool past 85 degrees on these treeless, asphalt RV campgrounds.  By Saturday afternoon the roof fabric over the beds was hot to the touch. I had been planning a possible fix for this problem, so I rigged up a silver reflective tarp over the big bed roof to see if that would make a difference.  It really did.  Problem resolved.

I learned that Mississippi Mavericks, the host club, is down to 2 or 3 members.  Most everybody has quit!  Seems there are conflicts among the leadership that need working out.  Swamp Dog Agility, on the other hand, seems to be blossoming.  Apparently they enjoy teamwork, and do all sorts of stuff together besides dog agility, such as tubing and kayaking.
One lady brought her Lure Coursing machine out each evening for anybody to try.  I wrote all about the experience in my previous post, here.

Trial Site Summary  (see links):  The restrooms/shower area is complete, as is most of the construction we encountered last year, and I like that the sites are on grass, not limestone or asphalt. Made a huge difference in the heat factor.  What is with these RV park designers that they cut down every single tree???  Have they no appreciation for shade or grass?

Willow (left) and Maxie (right) ringside,
resting up for the next round.

GOALS MET:

• Lucky's AX title
• Maxie's 8th Q in XS towards the 10 needed for his MX title.

GOALS SET:

• One more XJ Q for Lucky, and her AXJ title.
• Two more XS Q's for Maxie, and his MX title.
• One more QQ for Maxie by November to reach the 6 he needs to qualify for AKC Nationals next year.  Unfortunately, he won't have the 400 MACH points by then, with just 267 right now.  If only AKC hadn't changed the rules mid year that no longer double 1st place MACH points, and 1.5 2nd place MACH points, we might well have made it.  Still, I'll get as close to the goal as possible.
• A few more QQ's for Maxie in 2011, leaving fewer QQ's to achieve in 2012 to reach MACH (CHampion status) next year.

Upwards and onward!

Hattiesburg Agility Trial - 1st Pop-Up Excursion

John, Max and Willow pose just before we leave our house.

Legs Earned:  Maxie NS2, NS3, NJ2, NJ3
Q 4 out of 4 runs, all 1st place.
Earned NA and NAJ Titles

Our first excursion in the pop-up was a total disaster! I had entered Max in our first out-of-town trial, in Hattiesburg, and wrote about the trial here. Since John's days off are Thursday and Friday, he followed me as I towed the camper behind my Grand Marquis on Thursday.  We gave ourselves a whole afternoon to set it up.  It was my first time pulling it, and while it was jerky and bumpy in town, once I got going 75 miles per hour, at a steady pace, it towed fine.

Unfortunately, nobody told me I needed an extension mirror on the drivers side, so I couldn't see over or around the camper. Had no idea who was behind me. We had our walky talkies, though, and I was able to tell John to stay a good distance behind me, and watch my back. The traffic wasn't bad.

Arriving in Hattiesburg, at the RV area of the Forrest County Multi-Purpose Center, we found all the desirable slabs (near the lake, close to the arena) were on a steep slant. What stupid engineering! Nobody prepared us for that. Nevertheless, I chose the best view, near a hiking trail. When lowered and fully extended, the two back feet of the camper were 3" off the ground, and we had no levelling boards! We scrounged around the park and found a discarded 2x4" piece and some pressboard we were able to tear up into little bits to wedge between the back feet and the slab.

Cracked slab under car.

Unhitching the camper from the car was a bitch because the slab surface wasn't flat, either. It had an enormous dip shaped like a V, which I had not noticed when choosing the site. No matter where we positioned the car, the camper was either pulling UP on the hitch, or pushing DOWN on the hitch. We had a devil of a time finding a spot where both were level, but this positioned the camper too far back from the patio slab extension, or too far forward of the electric and water hookups.

Feet finally stabilized, we unhitched the camper from the car it immediately began chattering off the boards and down the hill, and by the time we got it stopped, the back feet were no longer over the slab and there was a 6" dropoff to the soggy grass. Let me tell you, we were sweating buckets by this time. Of course, no one had told us we needed wheel chocks! We managed to push it back up the hill a foot or two, John held it while I backed the car up enough to chain it back to the hitch and pull it up about 5 feet, pulled the brake, then went searching for anything to chock the wheels before unhooking it from the car again. We finally found two old broken pieces of concrete block that were plugging up holes under the chain link fence around the lake, thank god, and used those.
 

At this distance, we discovered that our 15' hoses (one for water, one for drainage) were too short to reach the water spigot.  So we had to join them together to make one hose long enough so I could have running water. OOPS!  Need to buy longer hoses. I'm beginning to realize, this rig didn't come with ANYTHING EXTRA!  I didn't really need a sink drain hose anyway because I wasn't washing dishes, just brushing my teeth and rinsing out the coffee cups, etc.  What the hell, the sink could just drain on the slab, and excuse me for not knowing everything already.

All this in 90 degree weather, windy, and overcast.  It was muggy as hell!

?, with linked pens set up for all her boxers,
and a separate trailer to house her scooter
and other stuff.

We got the rest set up without a problem, went to the arena to set up our crates, then came back and fried up some thick pork chops on the built-in outdoor stove under out awning, somewhat what we had pictured our first campout to be, and visited a few other dog people in the park.  One of them was Susan Kelley, competing with her Champion boxers, and we were amazed at all the pens she set up to feed 6 or 8 of them, and how she walked them twice daily on her motor scooter, 1 or 2 at a time.  It was quite an operation! She warned us to take down our awning, as horrible storms have come thru that park suddenly and ripped them off of dozens of rigs.  So we took the awning down, then turned in.  For the rest of the weekend I smoked my cigarettes outdoors in the rain under an umbrella!

Next morning John and I were awoken by Nedra, who was walking her dogs and had come to find us.  That was real nice.  Then we went to the arena for awhile and watched the Excellent dogs compete before John had to leave for BR.  I was on my own.

Max competed in Novice FAST on Friday, just for kicks and to get Max used to the arena.  We scratched.  Need more distance training.  Everyone from BR went out to dinner but I was so darn exhausted, I stayed home and downloaded to my computer the videos I had taken of all our club members' runs, and watched them.  That was my evening's entertainment.

I slept well Friday night and we did very well on Saturday, 2 more Q's, 2 1st places with perfect scores.  We were 1/2 way to our goal.  Now we just needed one more Q in Jumpers, and one in Standard, to earn both our Novice Titles.  Saturday night we all went out to dinner and had a good time.  I refrained from alcohol, planned to get to bed early, and was confident all would be well on Sunday.

What I came home to, though, was a Battle Of The Bands going on in an open air arena right next to the RV Park.  The bands screeched horribly and the crowds were loud 'til 2 a.m.  I hardly slept.  Nedra had also told me to pack up as much as possible on Sat. night because as soon as our dogs ran on Sunday they were leaving.  I needed their help getting the camper hitched back up to my car!  So I packed everything I could on Saturday night, and between runs on Sunday I had to go pack some more, and lower the roof.  By this time it was raining and hot!  I left the dogs crated up inside the arena. I wore my thin waterproof jacket with hood, but while that kept the rain off, I was sweating buckets inside.  I felt almost feverish, weak and light-headed.

When Max and I had our first Sunday run, we Q'd with a score of 90, but barely, due to my exhaustion. My legs were like jello. Then Nedra and Cheryl H. and I went out to the camper and they helped me raise the feet, back the car up to the hitch, then unchock those wheels.  I drove the camper up to the arena and parked sideways along a curb, perpendicular to the painted lines of a long row of parking spots.  I took up about 5 slots.  Then I had to go back inside for our last run.  We Q'd again, but barely.  I was so sweaty, tired and disoriented, I just made stupid mistakes, such as releasing Max from the table BEFORE the judge said GO.  Duh!  I just could not concentrate.

My wee little pop-up amongst the big rigs.
Notice my neighbors' dogs behind their portable fences.
There were a husband, wife and 5 dogs in that family.

When I got back out to leave, someone had parked in the slot right in front of my car, and someone in the slot right behind the camper! Fortunately, one of the cars moved within about 5 minutes or I could have been hemmed in for hours.  So, I'm thinking, what the fuck else can go wrong?  I couldn't wait to get safely home.

I pulled out of there and vowed NEVER AGAIN to take my pop-up to a trial unless I have checked out the area beforehand, the weather is nice, go the day before to set up, and have some help.  Going solo almost cost us our title.

Yet hundreds of agility competitors travel to trials all over the country in their RV's.  They do this weekend after weekend, and many have real nice rigs, with fences to let their dogs out in, scooters to walk their dogs with, barbeque pits, etc.  It was so pathetic to see my wee little pop-up amidst all the big rigs.  But you know what?  Max, Willow and I were as snug as a bug in a rug.  Were it not for the, er, "learning curve", we would have been very, very content.

So, what else could go wrong?  When I got home, the next day I had to put the camper back up to dry the canvas out.  While raising the roof, a cable popped, one of the 4 telescoping pillars that raise the roof collapsed, and I could neither raise nor lower the roof any more.  It sat there totally lopsided. Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  What if this had happened in Hattiesburg?  We finally got our strong, tall neighbor, Thom, to come over and hold that corner up while I cranked the roof down, then towed it to a shop for repairs.  I explained about that repair in my Pop-Up Camper post yesterday.

Ace Maximillion von Fry, NA NAJ

Summary:  We earned our AKC Novice titles and the right to list them after his name!  Goal met. But it was sweating buckets the whole way. Here's a picture of Maxie posing with all his Novice ribbons. It shows 6 green "qualifying" ribbons, plus 6 blue "first place" ribbons, plus 2 red Titling ribbons. The best part is he earned 6 legs in 6 runs, and didn't NQ once.  It's a fantastic beginning, but I'm told it won't last.

Now on to the next trial to earn our Open titles.