The Fargo Edition...

I’m totally bummed.  I know you’re not supposed to start out a new blog all depressed and totally bummed out, but I am.  It’s the “Eeyore” in me.  I was going to give you this super fun update on the Fargo agility trial and I took a bunch of pictures with my phone to prove it and my husband was going on about how my phone needed an update and when we got home he promptly installed the new update (taking 4 hours but whose counting?).   Well, the new update erased every picture on my camera roll.  Every stinking one of them.  Every pic of Cally in the shower from our Nationals trip, every pic of Mulligan with his camo bandages on from his TPLO, every picture of Bunker with his Frisbee in his mouth.  They’re all gone.  And my super techy husband left town this morning, so he doesn’t even get to experience my full wrath.  

Where was I going?  Oh yeah, so all the pictures that I took of the Fargo trip-including the costume contest are gone.  Gone, gone, gone.  That’s why I’m bummed.  Oh bother. 

Anyway.  We had a blast at the Fargo Moorhead Kennel Club AKC agility show.  First off-they have new mats!  Whoo hooo!!  They other ones were getting pretty hard and traction was an issue without tons of tacky paw. The judge was good. (not that we were super successful on her courses or anything-not a standard Q to be had by us-but we were close)  The club in general is awesome!  Totally adorable!  They are soooo freaking cute.  They have all this homemade food (where can you find a rice crispy bar the size of your fist for only $.50??)  and they announce the qualifiers of every class and everyone claps and “whoo hoos”  and celebrates everyone’s successes.  It’s also a small enough trial that you get to see lots of other people’s runs and that’s always fun. 

As for how we did, well-Cally gets a “you don’t have to Q” card because she did soooo awesome up at Duluth last weekend going 5/6.  She did pick up a couple of jumpers legs.  In fact, on Sunday I decided to scrap the double front cross or backy-upy move that everyone was doing before the tunnel and do a one handed serpentine move.  Just for fun-zies.  This is how it ended up.... 

And then the 24 inch class, let's see if we can do it again.... after Cally's run, I had people coming up to me saying (joking) "you know, nobody likes a show off!"  and  "that's world team stuff!"  

The best was after Bunker's run-which really- felt really really good.  I soooo needed that.  I had one guy come up to me and tell me that "you know-the second time you do it is just rubbing it in!!"  He's so freaking cute.  

Dang I love that dog, but I'm so frustrated with him.  He’s starting to miss two out of three dogwalk contacts in competition.  How frustrating is that?  And the one he hit this weekend, he dropped one bar keeping us from a clean run.  So, between the DW contact and the one bar syndrome, I’m ready to retire him.  I’m just tired of dealing with a great run, but just one thing keeping us from qualifying.   We have the next six weeks off, so we’ll see what I decided after that/in that time.  Brad says he can’t retire but really- he doesn’t run him.  

So here is where I was going to show you pictures of the costume contest.  I brought Mulligan’s old football jersey at the last minute because I’m not very costume creative, but when I saw the things people had come up with, I left it in the bag…. My personal favorite was the “Aqua Lab.”  The Labrador complete with mask, snorkel, fins and scuba tank.  He won first place in the big dog division.  I think the “One banana, two banana, three banana” won first place in the little dog division.  They were three little dogs dressed as bananas (duh) and popped out of a Dole banana box-totally freaking cute!

On a side note, I'm not really sure how I'm going to get any training done for this half marathon done while training/running the dogs.  I did managed to run four miles last night after we got home, but it was supposed to be seven and I missed the run I had planned on Saturday.  The last thing I feel like doing after a long day of trialing is to go run a zillion miles.  Hmmmm...

What would you do?  

Do you have any thoughts on how to retrain a four on the floor to a TOTO? 

Have you ever trained for a half marathon or any other event and did dog agility too?