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On May 28, 2000, Sunday, at 60 Acres Park in Redmond, Washington, I entered my
fourth official ASFA Lure Coursing event, sponsored by W.W.W.A. There were
14 dogs in
my stake.
That's a peanut flavored doggy cookie shaped like a fire hydrant!
Boy was it yummy!
My preliminary run was with Bailey. My Mom says people watching
the race were commenting about how fast I am! ("Wow, look at
that dog go!" "Boy, she's fast!") At the end of the preliminaries,
I was tied with Bomber for first place.
Click to see close up.
Wheeee!
For the final run, I ran with Andrew and Rocky.
Bomber ran right after I did with Molly and Bailey. At one point in the
race, Bomber kinda ran over Molly. No one was hurt. Apparently
the judges didn't think Bomber did it on purpose, because he didn't get
disqualified. Molly bounced right back up and continued the
course. Good job, Molly.
Rocky is on the left, Andrew is on the right.
Anyway, after the scores were posted, I had 1st place,
Eddy was 2nd. I got a cool blue ribbon and a peanut flavored doggie
cookie that was 5" long and shaped like a fire hydrant! I've
eaten almost half of it already! Yum!
Now I have two 1st place wins and over 100 points which
is what I needed to earn my Field Champion title.
Because I won first place in the Open stake, I got to
compete for Best of Breed against the Field Champion winner. But
there was a tie for 1st and 2nd place between Cayman and Slick.
Cayman is a buddy of mine. When I lived with my
foster mom, Laurel, Cayman lived there, too. She was a rescue
also. Laurel found her at the pound. Cayman's sire had bit her
in the head. The owners took her to the pound instead of taking care
of her. She was only five months old. Laurel thought Cayman was so
cute, she went ahead and kept her instead of finding a home for her.
Cayman had a bad habit of biting people. She was just playing, but
she played rather hard. Now she pretty much just licks
everybody. She still gets rambunctious sometimes. She's small
for a whippet, though, and that makes her slower than other dogs,
sometimes. But she is a Field Champion.
Since the winner of the tie runoff would have to then
compete against me for the Best of Breed, they just had all three of us
run together. It was great. I got to run with two other Field
Champions for the first time in competition. We all did great.
That's me on the left, then Slick, with Cayman on the right.
Bounding to the finish line.
There was only one problem. There were some people
on the other side of the field flying model airplanes and kites. One
of the airplanes was white. When us hounds were released, Slick
immediately veered off to the right. He was apparently going after
the white model airplane! But he quickly rejoined Cayman and me who
were dutifully chasing the correct lure. I passed Cayman twice, Cayman
cut a little. (It's ok to cut corners a little; just not a lot.)
After the race was done, all the people were saying they
couldn't tell who won. We would have to wait for the judges
scores. After the totals were added up, Cayman was the winner.
I came in second and Slick was third. So Cayman was the FC winner and
the BOB winner.
Cayman didn't compete for the Best In Field. We
don't get any points for that and sometimes it's just not worth it.
The winner gets the biggest prize; this time a six-pack-sized
cooler. The other dogs competing were an Ibizan Hound, a Scottish
Deerhound and a Greyhound, all big dogs. Cayman would have done fine,
but a little Whippet running with those big dogs could be dangerous!
Anyway, Sophie the Greyhound won BIF.
The judges were Al Crume from Tracy, CA, and Becky Kaluza from
Hillsboro, OR.
We ran the preliminary course clockwise, the final counter clockwise and
the run-offs clockwise.
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