Tournament Wrap Up

On Friday after work, the dogs and I drove up to Canada for a flyball tournament. I didn't get off work until 8:30 pm, so I had the car packed and the dogs loaded up so we could all just get in the car and go (and hopefully miss the college football game traffic that would be hitting at about 9-9:30). It was a genius and stupid idea all at once. My initial plan was to drive at least to Seattle, then possibly stop to sleep for a few hours before continuing on to Surrey. When we were in Seattle, though, I decided to just continue on and get across the border in the middle of the night. I figured the border crossing would be easier and quicker at night than in the morning with lines.

Jumping with enthusiasm 

Well, it might have been if we hadn't been detained for an hour. I hit the border crossing at 2:30 and was looking forward to being only about 15 minutes away from our final destination and sleep. But apparently, the border guards had never heard of flyball and thought it was suspicious that I didn't know the address of where I was going. The fairgrounds was just up the road, on the road the crossing was on, so I had no need for the address- I just drive up the road until I see the fairgrounds! After almost an hour of sitting around at the border, they finally let me go once they confirmed that there was, indeed, a flyball tournament happening that weekend at the fairgrounds. I have no idea why it took them that long to decide that.

In any case, we did finally make it to the fairgrounds and get some sleep.

One of her warm up turns. The purple/pink wraps on her feet are skid boots, to keep her carpal pads from being damaged

Koira was running on an Open team both Saturday and Sunday. Since no one else from our club was able to go to this tournament, we crated with the team we were running with. It was new and different to be at a tournament without my team, and while I missed my team mates, it was a lot of fun to run open. Our Open team ran into some difficulties on Saturday with running clean, but did much better on Sunday.

Another turn during warm ups.

As predicted, Koira's turn reverted to her bad turn at the tournament. Our great success last Thursday at practice was exhilarating, but I did know at the time that running a tournament so soon in that success would destroy what progress we had made. That said, I do think the majority of her turns this past weekend were better than the majority of her turns at the previous tournament. Her turns during warm ups were actually decent, and I have high hopes that we will get some good solid turns that will stick, now that the tournament season for us has ended for at least a few months.

A two-footed turn during actual racing. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. This was taken on Sunday, and is as bad as her turns got for the weekend.

The drive home after the tournament was unremarkable. We were across the border with less than a 5 minute delay. I had debated staying Sunday night in Canada and seeing some of southern BC for the first time (I've only ever gone to the tournament and home), but my camera battery was dead, which made the idea of sightseeing less appealing. I ended up just heading home immediately. And, thanks to the time change, we made it home just after 11 pm.