I drive around and around in Petaluma.

On the way up to Petaluma, I drove into a black hole of not finding my motel and finally I found it. It was dark and late and most Motel 6's you can see from the freeway. But not this one. It was hidden behind a strip mall. I would get off the freeway, stay one the freeway, drive on country roads, use the force. It took a while. It was a lovely Motel 6. In the world of dog agility, I like to do it up right. I rarely stay over night for a dog show so it's nice to have a luxury splurge like this. My own queen sized bed. A tv with quite a few channels! A tiny soap and 2 towels. Free ice! The dogs love to stay in motels and enjoy running around the room and jumping on the bed for about an hour until I make them go to sleep. All Motel 6's have the same blotchy pink, purple and teal color scheme on the bedspreads and plastic shower inserts. This one had a pool though! Which we did not use since I got there at about 10pm. But we did have a nice stroll around the grounds and enjoy the thoughtfully large font of the address numbers used to number each door, vertically. I was room 137. I even had my own parking space right in front!

I like going to Petaluma though, it's a little bit of a longer drive but not that bad, and I can have dinner with Brody and family on the way up at their bay view mansion on the hill in Tiburon. Cole enjoys teensy tiny dogs and they have steak there. So I vote for more dog shows in Petaluma. And I just looked on the website, which would have helped to do before I went and found more coffee near the beautiful motel, which was a problem at 6am and sent me to a derelict donut shop because I was in a hurry. On the map, it looks like I could have found Starbucks galore had I just been a little bit more patient.

The dogs were essentially good. Otterpop's new thing now is why should I run fast in the show ring because the frisbee is outside the show ring? So she clocks around, not super slow but not all that fast. Kind of lopes. Then when you are running out, towards where she knows I leave the frisbee at the gate, she speeds up and goes for it. So she made Q's, and received her official AD title, but it's really pretty half assed. I have to figure that one out.

Ruby on the other hand always goes for it, except her last run at the very end of the day in the heat, where she just seemed a little pooped. Ironically, she Q'd on that run. But all her other super speedy runs had enough of an error that she didn't Q. And I forgot to write down her times. Her standard was stunning but she knocked the very last bar on the course. She got the hard part of the gamble in her gamblers run then I screwed up the easier ending. I moved too quick on the closing of her snookers putting her on an off course. The usual small errors that are just enough to not Q. I have a hard time not being perfect. I watch other people and see some of the best people out there making errors too but I still want to be perfect and be the best one out there and without practicing more, it's not happening.