USDAA Tournament, Moorpark
July 31 & August 1, 2004
Mia Report

A very interesting show this past weekend at Happy Dog. They only had the Tournament classes (DAM, Grand Prix and Steeplechase), so it was a very different vibe than normal, but more on that later....

The show started with the Grand Prix and the first round of Steeplechase. Kiwi and Anne had a beautiful run with a single bar down to finish qualifying for this year's Nationals! Woohoo! She's going to Scottsdale! If it hadn't been for the bar down, they would have won the class, but the Q was definitely more important than a win. Kristi and Cinder were having a dynamite run, but a knocked bar and then Cinder banging her head into a weave pole and knocking herself out of the weaves kept them from Qing. Finn was a very good boy and made a great weave entry. He had a bar down, but was otherwise clean and picked up his first Grand Prix leg! Hooray! Max's run started with him having a meltdown about buzzing insects, but he picked it up after the first couple obstacles and placed 6th in a huge 22" class.
Saturday's Steeplechase was a really fun course. Kristi and Cinder had a blistering run and qualified in 2nd place for the second round! Gidget and Diane also made the second round with a lovely run. That Lab sure can weave! Max had a bar down, but was still fast enough to make the second round. Finn ran clean and had no troubles making the second round! I was very proud of how he ran all weekend.

After the individual events, the DAM began. The DAM is a team event with 3 dogs and 3 different handlers. Basically, the goal of the DAM is to get points to try and finish in the top 50% of the teams (top 50% qualify and then there's some other weird math way of qualifying, but I can't say I really understand how it works). The only way to not get any points, Gamblers and Snooker being exceptions, is to be eliminated (off-course or 3 refusals). So, you end up running courses trying to not have off-courses, which is a very defensive and it turns out stressful way of handling. There were 3 teams with GVDCers: Labracadabra (Diane and Gidget, Peggy B. and Indy and their friend Jeff and Summer), House of Blues (Kathie Brusca and Dixie, Kristi Cetrulo and Gale and me with Finn) and All for One and One for a Ball (Kristi Cetrulo and Cinder, me and Max and Kathy Lofthouse and TC).

Saturday had two DAM classes, Jumpers and Snooker. We all started with Jumpers. The Jumpers course had some serious traps in it that caused lots of off-courses. I'm not sure how Labracadabra did, but All for One and One for a Ball had two E's and Max had two bars down which added 10 seconds to his time, but at least he earned some points. House of Blues all got around Jumpers for points. Finn and Dixie both had a refusal and Gale went clean. Snooker was very interesting. It was a fun course, but since the DAM classes don't count for regular Qs, Super Qs didn't matter. Because of this, people weren't going for all 7s, which is so rare at a USDAA. After our disaster in Jumpers, All for One and One for a Ball turned into the CPA's (conservative pansy a**es). We all had good points, which was very needed after Jumpers. House of Blues also did well in Snooker. After the first day, House of Blues (the team we didn't have any expectations for) was in 8th place out of 56 teams. All for One was in 33rd place and needed to move up a bit to qualify. What I didn't tell Kathy L. (Kristi was aware of the situation) was Max went into the weekend needing a Steeplechase and DAM Q to finish his Tournament Master title. I hadn't expected the Steeplechase leg, but had expected the DAM team to easily qualify. Needless to say, 33rd wasn't what I was hoping for.

Sunday started with the second round of the Steeplechase and another great course. Max knocked an early bar and missed his A-frame contact, but gave a great effort. Cinder had a dynamite run, but also missed her A-frame contact (she would have won the class, if she'd hit it, instead finished a respectable 8th). Gidget had a gorgeous run! I think there was a bar down, but they looked awesome. Finn had a great run, made an awesome weave entry, but had one very wide turn. He still finished in 6th place and earned a whopping $13.86 (I think Cinder also earned $13 and some change).

Sunday's DAM classes were Gamblers, Standard and the always fun Team Relay. In Gamblers, Bud Houston set up a regular Standard course with a SCT of 50 seconds. The challenge was to figure out how many obstacles your dog could do in 50 seconds and to get to the table as close to 50 seconds as possible. You could start anywhere on the course and the different obstacles had different values. Before any dogs ran, you had to turn in your guess for how many points you were going to get. You lost points for every second you were over or under 50 seconds and by being under you point estimate. My teammates all did much better in this game than I did. There was one part where you went from the end of the course to the beginning (obstacle 19 to obstacle 1) that I just had the hardest time with. Both runs had that "please, make it stop" feel for me, but we did get some points, which is what really matters. Standard was a fun course. I made the fatal mistake of letting what everyone else was going to do, affect my course strategy with Max. It wasn't pretty, but we made it through with just a refusal. His teammates both had better runs, with TCs being one of the best I saw. Finn and Gale also had runs that earned points for House of Blues. I can't believe how stressful running to not go off-course is. You could definitely hear it in the handlers calls when they thought their dog was going to take a wrong obstacle.
The Relay was a blast! Dixie had some early troubles for House of Blues, but Finn and Gale both ran good thirds. All for One and One for a Ball ran clean. Neither team could touch Labracadabra in the Relay, but I'll let Diane tell the story....

Diane reports, "We should have named the team, Comic Relief, our relay run was so bad and hilarious it should be famous. Peggi and Indy started with a nice run. I took the baton and started OK but then had an off course, the crowd was making lots of noise and I couldn't understand why, as other people have bad runs and it wasn't that bad. Turns out Jeff had taken Summer's leash off and Summer took off to find Kris who was video taping the run. The tape shows a huge earthquake where Summer runs into Kris. Jeff got Summer back before the end of my awful run but he then turned to me to get the baton, when he turned back he had no dog. Summer had run to the score table and was eating someone's lunch. It was pretty DAM funny. We didn't come in last place, but close. I think about 5th to last."

At the end of Sunday, House of Blues managed to Q in 24th and All for One and One for a Ball moved up from 33rd to 7th! I told Kathy L. about Max's title after I saw the results and we did a happy dance. If you go into the DAM just trying to have fun and not worrying about qualifying, it's a great time. Here's a little something from Peggi B. that I think really sums up what the DAM should be about, "The best part is no one on our team was mad when the wheels fell off!!! We just laughed and went on! It was great!"

Tell your dogs they're good.

~Mia