1Q, 1NQ!

Back from the trial. Mum, Gracie and I are beat! Mum's tired and sore from running me on that deep sandy dirt, and working the trial all day. I am beat, because I had to run in the stuff. And Gracie is tired because she got to socialize all day with folks and play with other dogs. What a ruff life! We sure had fun.

The day's runs were pretty good. Had a really tough standard course, think only a handful of dogs qualified. And guess what? I was one of 'em! Mum was particularly concerned with a nasty tunnel/dog walk discrimination in the run, as well as a couple of other things. We started the run, and I was running good. She put me in the tunnel, then into the chute....then a double to a single.....then we were facing the tunnel/dogwalk. Mum did something new - she backed up some, got my attention, then shot me up the dogwalk and I did it great!!! Woo hoo! Mum got real excited about that. We've had lots of troubles with these discriminations lately, so it was really cool to get a bit of a handle on how to run 'em clean and have fun doing it.

The rest of the run went real well, despite the fact that Mum worried about having to run completely around a jump, as I took the tire and another jump, but it worked. Then it was on to the table, where Mum always gives me lots of good boys......then jump and a 90 degree turn to the weaves. I made the entrance great, but started to try and snif (that dirt is really smelly), but Mum gave me a good 'weave, buddy, weave' and I perked right up through my weaves. We finished clean and I got loads of treats after that run.

And I have to say it was so great to get real treats, again. Since my tummy hasn't been so good from the gastroenteritis last week, today was the first day Mum gave me real treats. Love 'em!!!

Had our JWW run a couple of hours later. Looked like a good course when Mum walked it. But dogs were dropping bars, taking off courses, and missing weaves over and over. Then it was my turn. We were running really, really well - great speed - then I hit my weaves and this smell just overcame me!!! Mum thought I pulled out of the weaves, but the judge didn't call it. Then we had two tunnels in a row, and I got real confused about which one to go in. Mum got me straightened out and we were off through the rest of the jumps at really good speed again.

Later Mum checked the results and we were over time from all the sniffing and tunnel mixups, but had no other faults. Hmmm, did that judge see Mum touched the weaves by accident, or me try to go in a wrong tunnel, or me miss a weave pole. Guess not! Ha!

Seems we were in good company not q'ing on this run. Only four dogs of the entire class Q'd. Yikes!

So we finished the weekend with three Q's, 1 DQ, a second, a third and a fourth place. Not too shabby for the first time running on loose, deep sand.

Trainer J is gone for the next couple of weeks so we are heading down to Columbus to train with a friend of Mum's. We are so looking forward to our trip and training sessions. Mum says I have to work on my discriminations, weave speed, and gambles. And Gracie needs to work on her ring focus - 'cause guess what Mum did? She entered Gracie in a trial on August 8th and 9th. One run a day. Hope Gracie can keep her head on her runs!!!!