The Fastest English Pointer!

We are back and we had a fabulous time at our tournament.    Dylan made his debut in Singles and posted his fastest time of 4.612!  Not bad for being out of racing competitvely for over a year now.   My starts were bad during singles and I missed one of his singles heats on Saturday but it was the end of the day and Dylan was being sluggish anyway.  His endurance is not where it used to be.  I didn’t get much chance to sprint him to prepare him for this tournament though.  He won’t find a tennis ball in the snow and that’s my usual method of running him.  Next tournament I hope to have a bit more time to prepare and better weather too.

Dylan is one of three English Pointers in U-Fli.  He’s now the fastest which isn’t much of an accomplishment since he is the only one with a time.  However, he is still a pretty good solid dog and I am incredibly proud of him.  Plus it’s kind of fun to say he is the fastest pointer even though it really doesn’t mean much!!  Not like Chase Me and Tinker from our team who are the 2nd and 3rd fastest jacks!!  They are solid and fast little dogs and we really enjoy racing with them!

Our team competition seemed a little off on Saturday.  It seemed I had a few early passes and Dylan’s box turn was really wide.  Dylan’s team finished third in Division 4.  I had been worried about us breaking out but it didn’t seem to be much of an issue Saturday. 

Saturday, I was having respiratory issues and it took me all day to figure out why!  150 horses right outside our building (and in the area that we were walking dogs) was too much for my poor weak lungs to handle!  I was being pretty stupid and despite not feeling well I was walking out through the horse trailers and out by the barrel racing.    I was sick and Dylan was definitely feeding off that energy.  His last heat he was running 5.5 seconds even with a decent pass.  That’s pretty slow for my boy!!!   I ended up pulling him out of his last heat which was singles and leaving right after awards to go to instacare.  I needed medical attention (AKA Steroids) if I was to make it through another day of racing with all those horses around. 

As a highlight from Saturday, I must mention that our Division 2 team ran a 17.8 something!!  I am pretty sure this is the fastest this team has ever run!!  I am new to Thunder Paws so I am not sure what they usually race but their fast team is usally in the 18’s I think   It was sooo fun to race with a positive and fast team.   I enjoyed not having any drama and appreciated that everyone was so nice and concerned about how I was feeling. 

Sunday was a much better day all around!!  Dylan’s team took first in our division!!  We ran fast and clean and near our breakout of 20 seconds all day.   It felt like everything went smooth and my passes weren’t even that great.   Dylan was a good anchor boy though and he was tugging most the day.  He got a bit tired in the afternoon though but got an invigorating accumassage from Hearts o’fire.  It helped and I was amazed at how much his energy level improved.   She recommended peppermint tea for him but I didn’t make it to the store to get any.   He did well without it though but his last heat again was in singles.   He raced an old friend from Utah Tail Blazers and didn’t win any races. Ryker is just too dang fast!  He was a bit off but most of his issues were because I was distracted and messing up his starts.  

Our team highlight from that day should definitely go to our Junior Handler who got a 0.000 start with her Border Collie Oreo!!  That’s really impressive!!  I hope Dylan and I accomplish that one day!!

All in all it was a great weekend!   I love the desert scenery of southern utah and the warm air.  If it weren’t so dang hot there in the summer I would love to live there!  I don’t think my dogs could handle that heat everyday though!

I got a bit of video on my camera but no team races.  Cynthia took care of videoing the team so when I get copies of that I will post them.  But here is video of Dylan’s single’s race against Cynthia’s dog Chase.  It looks a bit like he’s faster but he had a false start.   Chase really would have won this race!

I wanted to say thanks again to all my friends (and Paul and his parents) who contributed to what worked out to the best present I have ever gotten.  It was great to spend some time with R3K9’s,  Cynthia, and Marie (who came to help and watch on Saturday).     I also was so appreciative of my teammates who were awesome and fun to hang out with.  I feel lucky to have such a great team of people to race with!  And of course I am very grateful to my old friends from UTB who were so kind to help out whenever I needed it!! 

Here are just a couple of pics of my boy doing what he loves best!!! 

One final pic of Layla, Marley Princess, and Tatum.  Marley was an absolute angel this entire trip and I was so happy to get to spend so much time with her!!