Kathie's TAG~Line

As most of my students know from the types of coursework we have been doing the past few weeks, its that time of year – the 2010 AKC World Team Tryouts are being held this weekend. This year they are in St Paul Minneapolis at the Leatherdale Equine Center, part of the University of Minnesota.

Gryphon and I flew out of Sacramento at 6:45 this morning and after an uneventful flight, arrived in Minneapolis at noon. We met up with our friend, Val Rutledge, at the airport. We are sharing a room and car again this year. In addition to being a good friend, Val will also be Gryphon’s massage therapist throughout the weekend (she does this for a number of the competitors. I just have the advantage of sharing a room with her so I never have to hunt her down to get him worked on!). We come in a day early in order to get all settled, lay in groceries and do any other errands we want before getting down to work tomorrow.

After checking into our motel, we went out to find exactly where the event site is this year. In every other year since the inception of tryouts (save one), the competition has always been held at the Hopkins arena, in Hopkins, MN (nearer to Minneapolis than St Paul where we are this year). We all knew where the motels were, where the good restaurants, grocery stores, etc, were all located. But this year, the World Championships are being held on dirt instead of carpet or other artificial surface. So, Coach Nancy Gyes wanted tryouts to be held on a similar surface. So, we have a new site. Our motel, a renovated train maintenance complex, is a nice Best Western only about 3 miles from the site. Our room is a good size one that opens into the pool area.

After finding the site, it was time for lunch. We found a Whole Foods and took care of both lunch and groceries! After one more quick stop at a Cub Grocery for a few more mundane things we couldn’t get at Whole Foods, we headed back the motel and settled in for the night. Of course, that’s when we realized the down side to having a poolside room – there are about 30 kids out screaming and playing in the pool area. Fortunately, 9 pm is the closing time for kids and things should quiet down in about 30 minutes!
Tomorrow things kick off with practice at the site. As happens in Europe, each competitor gets a set amount of time on the floor an the actual equipment that will be used in the competition so all the dogs are on even footing, all having had a chance to get the feel for the weight of the chute, the tip of the teeter, and the grip of the footing. After practice, we will draw for our initial running order in round 1. Small dogs, which is Gryphon’s division, have 25 dogs entered; the Medium are about the same, and the large dogs have 35 entered. After round 1, the running order changes in each round. More on this and the way the scoring works tomorrow.