Carbon overcame the mud and slop to put in three respectable runs (OK, two respectable runs and one pretty sorry one) at her first Singapore USDAA trial on Saturday, September 12. Unfortunately, she did not earn any qualifying scores, but we were both just glad to have stayed upright.It had rained the day before; and the park maintenance people had mowed, and then dumped composted cow manure on the whole place, some of which was raked out, some of which was still in huge mounds. It wasn't muddy IN the ring, thank goodness, but outside the ring it was a mudhole. The compost built up on my shoes till I had huge Mickey Mouse feet, and it was slick. I was amazed that Carbon was willing to walk in it at all - she can be such a Miss Priss about the terrain over which she prances. I was able to set her little pen up in a dry area on higher ground, though, which helped our mood.
The trial was held at an off-leash dog park, and the agility area was not cordoned off (the ring itself was, but that's it) so there were loose dogs everywhere, many with oblivious owners, which made for an interesting day. The loose dogs had a grand time rolling in the mud and compost and then gleefully running past and onto people and swishing their muddy tails all over everything, so we humans, too, were covered in the mud and compost.
But Carbon the Poodle Princess made many new human friends! She lay there on her little woven plastic mat, paws crossed, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She can be so prissy. The little queen. "What a BEAUTIFUL dog!" they would say. "What an amazing color!!! Is that a FRENCH poodle???" "LOOK at her just lying there so quietly --- HOW did you train her to be such a GOOD DOG???" And I would just smile and thank them, all the while thinking, god help us all if a little white Maltese wanders by right now. Somehow I got lucky and she did not act like an idiot more than just a couple of times --and was certainly no worse than any other dog there.
Poodles are fairly uncommon in Singapore, especially standard poodles, so she got a lot of attention just for her poodledom.
The trial started late so we did not have our first class till 1:00 and it was good and hot by then...but Carbon did not embarrass me; she was hot and not very energetic but she tried hard; she was a good poodle for the most part. She got distracted a couple of times by squeaky-toys being played with on the adjacent field -- but overall her course times were fine and she only knocked one pole, and not hitting any when running in Championship level where she had to jump 26".
The last class of the day was the one I would have liked her to qualify in; she had a VERY good run overall but knocked a bar -- it was my fault because I didn't give her a good approach. So no Q ribbons -- too bad!
The last class was around 7 pm - Carbon was the last dog in the last class -- and then they had a nice ceremony to give out the prizes and loot! Carbon won a bunch of treats and toys and food for her 2 second place ribbons -- that was a nice surprise (they don't do that at U.S. trials).
Kenneth Tatsche, the president of USDAA was there -- there is a new USDAA chapter starting in Italy, too, so he was visiting it, and us, and then to Hong Kong, and then back to Dallas. There was also an agility trainer from Australia there, who had been in town doing agility workshops, and we chatted about Singapore agility, Australia agility, and of course dogs in general. We also met many other friendly dog people and had a good day.
Sunday was the Masters Team classes and also the World Frisbee Championships but I was still recovering so we stayed home on Sunday.
My shoes were disgusting but I was able to rehabilitate them over the next couple of days...
The photos in this post (with the exception of the ones of Carbon in her pen, and my disgusting shoes) were taken by Fawn Loong of Malaysia.
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