Super size her Super Q.

Ok, let me tell you about a dog game named Snooker. It's a strategy game, you have a certain amount of time to get a certain amount of obstacles done, the ones at the end in a prescribed order, and the ones in the beginning in an order you pick. You want the most points, but you don't want to run out of time. It's a little stressful. Each obstacle has a point value from 2-7, which also corresponds which the order you will do them before the end of the whole fiasco. Besides the points you get from them. Still with me?

To make it harder, there are 3 or 4 red jumps out there. You have to do one of those before you do each thing in your opening sequence. You could do all 4 IF you think you have enough time. They are always FAR away from the higher point value obstacles. So you have to really plan out a crazy strategy good. Let's make it even more complicated. If you take an extra obstacle in there, you are whistled out. If you knock the bar down over a red osbtacle, go to another red. Unless it was your last one! Then go on.

It's enough to make people crazy. Watching Snookers runs is just insanity out there, people doing totally wacky things and their dogs just going bonkers with the bizareness of it all. Personally, I love Snookers. It's always helpful to go at the end of your class and watch-did so and so who ALWAYs wins get whistled out anywhere so I could throw in a 6 instead of a 7? The 7's are all weave poles, you know Ruby won't win on that one unless someone else messes up somwhere, which happens all the time in Snookers. Why is everyone so more extra focused on winning? Because in the Masters Level, you don't just need to qualify. That would be too easy. You need Super-Q's. Which means you basically win or come in the top 3 dogs or so if it's a big class. It's a percentage. A teensy, tiny percentage. And if all the dogs are doing all the 7's, then you have to do it that much faster even or hope the fast dogs get whistled out somewhere for an error. In all Ruby's bunches of Masters Snooker Q's she still does not have a single Super Q!

So at the CPE trial a couple weeks ago, I had Otterpop try a Super Q strategy. Just for the heck of it. I didn't put Ruby in Snookers at that show, she got to sleep during this. It involved leading out across the whole ring, running over the a-frame, running across the whole ring, running back over the a-frame. Then running across the whole ring and surprise, running back over the a-frame (can you guess what the 7 point obstacle was here?) She thought we were nuts but she ran fast and flew over all those a-frames before flying around her closing sequence. Otterpop not only aced it in under time, but she was the only dog in the whole show to get the Super-Q getting score of 57 points. Of all the big dogs, all the high level dogs, every single dog. It felt extremely excessive while we were doing it, after watching all the dogs go for more modest point selection, but I wanted to see if it was possible, since when else are you going to practice getting a Super Q? You go Otterpop!