Dancer and Elly and I spent the weekend in Lynden, WA (near the Canadian border) just soaking up the particular atmosphere that is NADAC agility. Dancer just lights up when we get to an agility trial, and this weekend was more brilliant than ever.

Friday night was Regular and Hoopers. Regular is the basic kind of agility with all the obstacles (although NADAC doesn’t have the teeter). Both girls had fast runs but missed contacts. In Hoopers, though, they really shined! Hoopers is a strategy and handling game where the handler has to design a course through a series of handling tests, and complete it within a limited period of time. Dancer took first in her class (20+ dogs) with the fastest time of all the dogs in the entire Hoopers group, 25.98 seconds. Elly was almost as fast, at 27.19 seconds.

Saturday, there were issues with contacts… so no Regular Qs and no Touch N Go Qs. And an absolutely beautiful off-course in Jumpers by Dancer… BUT! BUT! Weavers was great. Weavers is a course of tunnels, hoops, and (in Novice) three sets of six weave poles. Dancer ran faster in Weavers than she has ever done before, doing the three sets of poles and the 126 yards (a football field AND the endzones) in 27.74 seconds for third place (14 seconds under qualifying time). Elly did the same course in 33.08 seconds (and also Qd).

(I just realized that was Dancer’s Outstanding Novice Weavers title!)

In Tunnelers (all tunnels!), Dancer was really flying, despite it being the last of six runs that day. She did the 127 yard course in 23.12 seconds, for 5.5 yards/second. That was almost 10% faster than her previous best of 5.2 yps.

Dancer’s last Q came on Sunday in Open Jumpers, where she saved me from embarrassment even though I almost sent her over the wrong jump–she came back around, did the right jump, and ran so fast that we managed to Q anyway, running 32.56 seconds over the 139 yards–qualifying time was 32.71 seconds, so you can tell it was a bit of a squeaker. It’s hard to make course time in NADAC if you make mistakes!

Monday morning I left the girls with Cat (the Northwest’s finest poodle sitter!) while I saw my doctor for a checkup on my bone cancer. Slightly more than two years after my surgery, it is gone, the holes from getting the plate removed are healing well, and I had the pleasure of hearing my oncologist tell me that I’m cured and I don’t need to see him anymore. A perfect finish to a great weekend!