Spice Qs again in Jumpers (with weaves!)

This Thanksgiving weekend the weather was perfect at Spot On. Rarely do AAC Master Jumpers have weaves. This weekend the judge decided to put weaves in the course. It was a tricky exit as well. I walked the course for only Taari again. I ran her first and she didn't hold her stay at the start line (first time on the weekend). Then she took out the cones at a tunnel entrance. She doesn't like it when I rear cross a tunnel and spun around to tell me so. There were some good parts of her run.

I didn't practice the weaves much with Spice since his surgery since I never expected to see them in a jumpers run. I decided that whatever he did with the weaves would be fine I would just continue on if he stopped or pulled out. I was quite surprised that he did the weaves really well. He Qed with less than a second to spare. I will have to check and see how well he has done in the past with jumpers with weaves. I do remember that Qing with weaves in a jumpers run was hard for Spice.

Here is the YouTube version of the run. Below I uploaded it to my blog.

Spice gets his Silver Award of Merit

Judge Lane White, Spice and Teresa

On Sunday I ran Spice at the K9 Klubhouse trial in Pickering Ontario. Earlier in the day I wasn't sure how he was feeling. He wasn't perky but perhaps I had just woken him up. I walked him around and warmed him. Getting out his "magic" frisbee out always get him excited. The frisbee has a food pouch. When I threw it for him the first time he didn't run after it but after the first time he was enthusiastic about it.

While I was waiting ringside and playing with him (with the frisbee) he did a play bow and barked at me. He has never done this before - at least not that I remember and definitely not ringside. That made me happy - he was definitely feeling pretty good. He wasn't showing any signs of stress. This used to be a problem and mostly likely a large contributor to how slow he ran sometime. I know that I was a major cause of his stress. This was his second last try at getting his Silver as there is only one more trial after this one. I was a bit worried that I might cause him stress again. Well I obviously wasn't. I think that in the back of my mind I was thinking it would be nice to get his Silver but really he doesn't care so I just want him to have fun and it was great that he was feeling so much better let alone able to compete again.

I had only walked the course for Taari who I ran first. I thought that I would have plenty of time to decide how to run it for Spice since Taari was one of the first dogs and Spice was the last dog. I also thought that I could think on the fly with him as he isn't as fast as Taari. Here is the video of his run. There is one spot where I was out of position. Spice Qed and his speed was 3.79 yds/sec. This is his 5th fastest Jumpers run ever (out of about 64 jumper runs).

A big thank you to everyone who helped with Spice's recovery, our trainers, family and friends for your support. If it wasn't for the excellent care he received from his surgeon, veterinarian, chiropractor and massage therapist he would not be feeling as good as he does now. Getting his Silver is just icing on the cake.