DACOF Recap

DACOF 2010 is history! While we didn't have a repeat of last year's performance, we did have (for the most part) a really good time.

Saturday started with Open Standard - about 3 1/2 hours after I walked the course. Peyton was WILD. We had one off-course after another and even took out the double. It was a little painful. In fairness, most of our mistakes were my fault as I was totally unprepared for his um, enthusiasm. :)

FAST was next and even though I missed the walk-through, we had a decent run. Had I paid a little more attention to the rules, we would have had a really good run with 11 more points. Oops!

We finished the first day with Jumpers and even though our run wasn't terrible, it felt very frantic. He was actually pretty focused, but was running so high that I was totally flustered. Peyton doesn't bark on-course very often, but he was barking quite a bit this weekend!

For DACOF the rules are a little different than the average trial. It's based on a point system (each run starts at 100) and you lose points for faults, but can gain points for being under standard course time. You can have off-courses, missed contacts, and knocked bars, but it's very important that you complete every obstacle or you'll end up with 0 points for the run (not good). Being clean is best, but if you can't be clean then you need to be FAST to make up for lost points.

Thankfully Peyton had the speed part down and we were able to make up for a lot of lost points. I'm just hoping that I won't be paying for all of our "quick release" contacts at our next trial. :)

We had a much better day on Sunday. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling good, but I think that actually helped since I didn't have the energy to get as flustered as I was the day before. We started off with a really nice standard run with one knocked bar and one off-course that was my fault. It didn't seem like our run was that fast, but even with the off-course, we finished just 2 seconds behind the awesome little Border Collie who won.

Our jumper's run got off to a rough start - the judge was standing right in Peyton's line of sight and I think he got a little distracted and went off-course. The rest of the run was pretty good and he had to work hard to make his weave entry - good boy!

I was a little disappointed in some of our runs - had it been a regular trial, I wouldn't have cared as much, but since DACOF is a team event, there is a bit more pressure to do well. Our team ended up finishing 18th out of 48 teams, which isn't bad at all, considering we didn't contribute much on Saturday. And our other club team ended up placing 3rd, which is super awesome! We had two really great teams year and it was a lot of fun to see all of our club members do so well!

I think Peyton and I are in recovery mode - I'm still not 100% and I think he ran a few of his spots off this weekend. :) This time next week we'll be getting ready to head to Perry, Georgia for a 4 day agility trial so hopefully we'll both be ready. I'm pretty sure Peyton will be, but I'm not so sure about me!