Central Ohio Dog Sports TDAA trial

Bud and I took our young girls to the first trial offered by Central Ohio Dog Sports. This is a group of our friends and former students who have banded together to offer TDAA trials and other events.

I was very impressed with their organization and all the special things they did to make exhibitors feel welcome, and to provide a happy, safe trialing environment.

The group made up gift bags and set them out for the first game walk-through, where everyone entered in the trial would be moving past them. The gift bags contained some candy, some dog chewies and toys (a neat little tennis ball for small dogs) and a hand-written thank you note from the committee for our support of their first trial.

They had TDAA equipment brought in by Donni and Randy Breaden, so everything was up to spec and beautifully maintained. Randy and Donni attend lots of TDAA trials in the mid-west with their troupe of yorkies.

The club had rented our old training center site, a 60 x 90 building fully matted with 3/4″ stall mats. We have the same floor here and I’d forgotten how lovely it is to run on a consistent surface.

Sally Boarman, site owner, had spiffed up the place and cleared the floor of all her equipment in preparation for the onslaught of teacup equipment and people. There was plenty of crating space, lots of room for spectators, and no one felt crowded.

Teacup agility is about as close as you can get to the dog agility of the mid-90s, when it was just catching on in this country. People watch everyone run because they can sit with their dog near the ring. They cheer for each other, and commiserate with each other over those inevitable gliches.

I was running Bud’s girls because of his sore knee, and Hazard always seems to enjoy running with me. Her first standard run was perfect, her second standard run was flawed, but both were cheered and enjoyable. No one stopped me at the exit to say, “what went wrong at the tunnel entrance?!?!” 

There wasn’t a lot of panic or angst, though I did hear later that Robin was starting to get a little frustrated with her quest for that last Superior Standard leg for her TACh — she had 6 opportunities and finished her title Sunday afternoon.

The club sold lunch for $5 and had a little raffle. They provided plenty of porta-johns and parking. The weather was beautiful. The crowd was friendly and familiar.

All in all a terrific experience!

In other news, Mercy leaves us tomorrow morning for Collie rescue in PA. I’m told they are a group that fosters and places all types of herding dogs. She’ll be living in the home of the owner of the organization. They do background and vet checks before placing dogs. I’m confident my little girl is going to have a great life.

In other news, my refrigerator has been making over-much noise for the last 2 years. I thought it might be dying but my mother, who bought it in the first place, reassured me that it was working fine.

Well, 2 days ago I noticed my milk wasn’t very cold.  I thought maybe the door hadn’t shut completely. I shut it tight and swore to check it next day. Still not cold.

Now the produce is starting to smell, and the interior of the refrigerator is barely cool. I’ve got a repairman coming tomorrow morning and, in the meantime, am pricing new refrigerators because I HATE this refrigerator.

New units will run $950-$1400.  So I guess I’ll get this one fixed and put up with it for a few more years. [sigh]

In other news, I bought myself a mother’s day present (in lower case, since my kids are all dogs) yesterday — a battery powered string trimmer !!  I want to be able to spiff up the place without having to lug around gasoline cans or stretch out electric cords.

Besides, this seems a better idea ecologically.  Rechargeable batteries will provide an hour or so of string trimming. The unit came with 2 batteries, the charger, and a spool of string. We’ll see how well it functions in the real world of Country Dream.

In other news, my article in DogSports magazine is due out any day now. It’s on the Laws of a Dog In Motion as they relate to Rally-O.  And I was interviewed last week by the local newspaper and I keep hearing “the article on you in the Sunday paper was great!”  I haven’t read either yet, so I’m looking forward to that.

Tags: Bud Houston, dog agility, dog performance sports, dogs in motion, Marsha Houston, Shelter dogs, TDAA, teacup agility