It's all about the points.

OK. So I LOVE Snookers and Gamblers, because you can use your cunning and shrewd skills of strategy (not that these are things that I posess exactly, but I like to imagine I am cunning and shrewd just like I like to imagine I can sing Nirvana songs like a beautiful angel) to come up with point laden courses to Win With. And in the USDAA, you gotta get good at winning the Snookers so you can get your Super Q. Which sounds like something you could also get at Dairy Queen. But you can't. Only in Masters Snookers. If you win or come in close to the winner. And the winner is going to have A LOT of points.

Like you are figuring out, now that you all love learning Dog Agility Rules, in Snookers, you have a sequence out there, labeled with numbers 2-7. You want to be able to finish with this, thus getting the points 2+3+4+5+6+7. But you also want to do your opening sequence, which is 3-4 "red" jumps worth 1 point each, followed by something from that closing sequence. When you are a big fat point hog like me, you want to make sure to get all 4 reds and ideally, (4) 7 point things as well. But, the snarky hook is that the 7 point things are usually far, far away from red jumps, and you only have so many seconds to do this in before the whistle blows and you better be at the finish line.

So you gotta go out there and figure out, what is the fastest way from point A to point B, getting your points, not making too much of a crack head insane course that freaks out your dog, and still getting thru that closing. Before your time is all done. The super fast border collies can do some pretty crazy Snookers courses. My dogs, not so much. They're fast, but only so fast with their tiny little legs! And I try not to do the poles with Ruby in them. Poles are FREQUENTLY the 7 point obstacle. In the run from the video yesterday, the poles and tunnel combined were the 7 point obstacle, so you had to do both. So Ruby did (1) 7 point, (1) 5 point-that was the first tunnel at the beginning, and (2) 6 point things-that was those 2 jumps in a row. If you watch the video, knowing these rules, it all makes sense, right?. Otterpop, who didn't get videoed was able to do (2) 7 points, (1) 5 point and (1) 6 point, since she doesn't have the poles thing.

Wow, ready for more rules? Did you even know you ever wanted to know so many dog agility rules? If you knock over a red jump, you have to go to a new one before you do a thing with more points. If you are out of fresh red jumps, go on to the closing, sorry about the points! And if you mess up in the closing, run to the finish. If you mess up the beginning, run to the finish. Hope you got as many points as you were dreaming about. And I hope in your dream you were also wearing leather pants and Johnny Depp was there in the eyeliner but not the pirate hair and he had a kelpie. You know, dream big.