Today was the second and final day of the pre trial. As I posted very early this morning my day started off a bit rocky. But my husband is a dear and dropped Tom and I off at the trial sit at 5:30am. He and Zora then returned to the hotel to sleep like people who can sleep well in hotels.
Because of his loveliness I was able to get a good 90min nap in my antigravity chair in the nice quiet crating area. 7am people were arriving with dogs so I woke up. Then took a nice near hour walk around the property with Tom. There is a great track that is I’m guessing based in time it took us to walk it and our usual pace near a 1/2 mile around. So we walked that 4 times around. The walk was great, I could feel my body connect to the earth again instead of the free floating feeling I’d been experiencing. After our walk we returned to the crating area and Tom and I both go another nap in.
the rest of my morning was really chill. I volunteered in a class to help. I spent time just sitting in my chair. I spent time sitting in my chair petting Tom. Tom and I walked around some more. I chatted with folks. I got to play with a litter of mini Aussie mix puppies one of which, a really really nice pup is going home with a student of mine. I’m so excited for them! I had a good reconnect with my sensory system kind of a morning and early afternoon. I think Tom enjoyed the 1 on 1 attention as well.
around 2:30pm hubby and Zora arrived. Just in time to run a round of jumpers. I scratched us from the first round of jumpers and the mornings 2 rounds of hoopers. Zora was in crackerjacks, she’d basically been sleeping all morning in peace and quiet. It was a super fun non qualifying round. We practiced our switch cues a lot that round.
Sometime between 3:30 and about 6pm we ran 2 rounds of chances and qualified in both. Our 2nd run was gorgeous, felt very in sync. A great final round of the pre trial.
after feeding the dogs, we were able to pick up our check in bag! Full of some neat stuff! First the bag itself is nice, a convenient keep sake tote bag. Inside of it was a print out listing all of the competitors and judges for the competition as well as the sponsors of it. There was also the commemorative t shirt which I really liked the design and most importantly the feel of and am looking forward to actually wearing. Also included was a dog toy, some coupon cards, a cup, another tote bag, a clicker and some other miscellaneous items donated by sponsors. Usually at every champs nadac gives out a special leash to each competitor. This year instead of the leash we each of a personalized mini jump bar that is really cool and nice. It’s done in the same theme as this year’s champs which is something about outer space which I’m not sure why that theme but it is. I’m glad they switched to these as the leashes were nice but I’m rather particular about leashes and never used the one I got at my last champs all those years ago.
We also picked out our team New England regional group shirt today as well. I think we are all supposed to wear those tomorrow.
Today they also set up both the worker raffle and the state raffle areas. The state raffles are incredible. Competitors from each state or region in attendance come together to donate items for their states raffle basket. Folks can then purchase tickets to try to win the raffle. I made a nice dog bed out of some purple upholstery fabric I had to go in the New England raffle basket.
As we were getting ready to leave some folks we know invited us to join them for a pot luck by their rvs. We didn’t have anything to contribute to the pot luck but they forgave us. Lol. It was nice to be outside with some nice folks eating hamburgers and such. A great way to end today.
Tomorrow begins bright and early with the general briefing at 7am followed by everyones walk throughs of the course. We are dog number 49 to run tomorrow. Wish us luck!
Best of luck and have fun!
Thanks!
Good luck!
Good luck today!