WADDA DAY!

Man oh man. The day started with our so-called "hybrid" run. No, it does not mean super efficient with low emissions. It means a cross between a jumpers run and a standard run. Whitney had a clean run and a fast time (not the same kind of fast times they may have had at Ridgemont High, a movie TeamWhitney has never seen). Then we had to wait it out to see if we would make the cut for the finals. In the end, Whitney's cumulative score was 12th, and we were in the finals.

The finals are just an amazing experience. They are held in the middle of a 3 ring arena with stands on two sides. It seems that all of Tulsa decided the most exciting event in their city this week-end was not the Sunday New York Times, but instead, the agility nationals; so the place was packed with enthusiastic spectators. The final run was what we call a"technical" run. There were no places where the dogs could just run through a bunch of obstacles more or less in a row. Instead, there were very tight turns with traps lurking everywhere.

We ran as aggressively as you can on a technical course; and Whitney did incredibly well until we got to jump 17 where she turned the opposite way that I thought I had signaled. The crowd, which had been cheering wildly, cried out in despair thinking we were doomed. My heart was pounding. Not so fast. Whitney managed to regain her bearings, and we finished our run clean to huge applause (redemption always gets a big reward). We lost a second or two on the turn, but we ended up with a 6th place finish which resulted in TeamWhitney receiving a very unusual pink colored ribbon. Who picks these ribbons out for the AKC TeamWhitney cannot imagine; but what do we care? We are ecstatic!

Whitney had 7 out of 7 clean runs at these nationals and scored higher than a lot of dogs who are actually faster and who have super good handlers. Whitney went from 20th after the first round, to 16th after the second round, to 12th after the third round, to 6th in the finals. What a climb. And that's just this year. Looking back on our last three years at the AKC Nationals, Whitney has had 18 clean runs out of 19 total runs! Not too shabby at all.

Bow Wow video has tapes (if TeamWhitney may use such a technologically out of date term) of all of our runs. We will post them as soon as we receive them, which will probably be in about 4 weeks. For now we have some new still photos.

Also, as an indication of how competitive the 16" class has become, a 16" border collie, Driven, had the fastest time at the finals of all the jump heights. Normally, that is the sole province of the 24" dogs even though they have to run a little further because of the higher jump heights.

Tomorrow morning we are up early and headed back to the Bay Area; but we have had a lot of fun in Tulsa!