Quail Lodge Agility Trial

It was a long weekend of agility. Runs on Sat and Sun but Setup Friday and tear down Sunday with crew chief duties in between was exhausting.

This agility trial is pretty nice. Carmel Valley is known for dog friendly beaches, quality food and high priced shopping. Our trial site was the Quail Lodge Golf and Tennis club. Very ritzy type place.

I was worried what they would think when the mobile tent city that is an agility trial showed up, but they seemed to take it in stride. The Quail Lodge manager gave a speech the first day that bordered on the obsessed (the obsessed dog owner that is). She noted that Quail was genuinely happy that we were there and all the workers were thrilled about the dogs and agility.

Driving in on Sat morning, there was a huge field of perfect grass, immaculate white traffic cones, fancy marked signs indicating parking, and no less than SIX parking attendants.

What there wasn't was gophers. The staple of an agility competition. None, no, nadda. The grass was so thick you just wanted to lay on it and weep for joy at the smoothness and softness of it all. I believe many runs were screwed up this weekend due to the perfection. We just aren't at the top of our game when we don't have to dodge gophers and swamps.

The motor homes and tents were laid out in a grid pattern that rivaled many RV lots I've seen. The porta potties had multiple hand washing stations (with paper towels!). Vendors showed up giving gifts. All in all it felt very much like a much bigger trial than it was.

I worked as crew with my friend Laura. Not a bad job, but a consistent one. The hardest part was coordinating to get the dogs walked, courses walked, and dogs ready to run. Saturday for me was difficult to focus, we had some really close runs but only Q'd in pairs. Sunday 3 runs all close, no Q's.

I hope we are able to use the site again. Very cool place and SMART should be very grateful to Ernie for setting us up with Quail.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the hotel!