ASDA Arena Finals

The conversation went like this:

L: You guys should come! It'll be fun.
Me: Sure!!! Sounds fun!

That's about all the convincing it took for me and Jenilee to make the drive NORTH of Edmonton for an arena trial. Apparently we are UBER keeners. Because the little town of Mayerthorpe is 8 hours away. Really.

So off we went early Saturday morning- despite weather warnings, and snow, and rain, and ice. Confident in Jen's new winter tires. (and her awesome driving!)

It was a GREAT weekend. I had so much fun! Even though most of it was spent driving, and a big chunk of that was spent fretting about the weather, and the HORRIBLE road conditions. Like worse than I have ever been brave (stupid) enough to be on.

But we survived, and it was great. :) The company was great, the atmosphere friendly and relaxed. We were super lucky to have a great place to stay. Of course there was plenty of laughing and inappropriateness.

More importantly, my dog continues to impress me.

Brit blew me away today. Completely and utterly. She continues to work better and better, able to take more pressure, and do more difficult things. It amazes me. I never imagined that we could get this far!

The Ranch course today was much more difficult than anything we had done. A barrel to go around at the top, a fetch through two more barrel's, back to me at the handler post, and then a DRIVE all the way back up to the top of the arena around the barrel, and a panel on the wall on the way back. Serious business. Oh, and a pen of course.

And she did it! WE did it. It was as close to perfect as we've come at an arena trial. Some over exuberance on her part, and some handling errors on mine. But awesome enough (read: fast) for 2nd place in the first go round.

Here is video of that run.




The second go round didn't go quite as planned. But, except for an error at the top that wasted a bunch of time it too was a great run. I misjudged, and my dog didn't listen, took a wrong flank and tried making her own decisions. But we got it fixed and finished strong. Pen and all. This run was good enough for 3rd place!

Here is the video:



Had we been members of the ASDA last year we would have been eligible for the finals- a run off between the three top dogs in the class. It would have been awesome. (and we could have won a buckle!)  But unfortunately I didn't know about the cutoff date in time. Now I am properly joined, and will know for next year. But regardless I am just so completely thrilled with her today. I mean, it may not look great for the super dog trialers out there, but considering her weaknesses are pretty much everything we had to do today I could not be more proud of her.

Amazing. We have worked very hard to overcome, and work through some of her issues, and to see so much progress lately makes it all worth it. I am pretty lucky to have so many great resources around to help me out. I am looking forward to pushing through our next challenge, and we have some things to add to the list of stuff to work on. ;)

I know she can do it.