Wowser! Big News!

We're back from the trail today, And we have amazing news!

We left today about 10:30 AM to drive over to Ohio for the trial, got there about 12:30. My first run was JWW and the course looked pretty good, Mum said. Nice place for those nice rear crosses we worked on last week.

Mum set me up facing the tunnel, then it was four jumps with a rear to a jump and tunnel going left, then two straight jumps to the weaves, then a hard right to three more jumps and a rear (to the right) to six jumps in a row.

Despite the fact that I was kind of wide on one of the rears and got near taking the tunnel the second time, our run was good! And we got a Q, so that got me and Mum my MXJ! Yippeee!!!

Then Mum looked at the Standard course and thought, oh, no - may not get that DQ today or that MX, 'cause what she saw was something she hadn't seen yet, a macaroni tunnel with both ends with the Frame right in the middle - yep, you heard me a tunnel on either side of the frame, right up against it. And guess which obstacle was the fourth one, yep the Frame.

It was three jumps with a hard left to the frame (missing those two tunnels on either side, mind you!), then a right turn to a jump with another right to the dog walk, then the table. Then it was off to two jumps and the left side of that darn tunnel, then two jumps to the chute, another jump and a hard left to the weaves, to the left side of that darn tunnel. then a jump with a hard left to the teeter then two more jumps with the triple last.

Well, we have to tell you that course ate up a bunch of dogs - all of them accept about 8 NQ'd. It was a toughie for sure. But guess what! Yep, we Q'd, one of three dogs in 16 inches, and to top that we even got 1st place. Very, very cool.

A couple of things that Mum did that others didn't was very interesting. Many of the mini dog handlers were babysitting the frame, consequently they were bending over and throwing the pup into the out tunnel, or the dog would just stop in from of the frame, like what???? We watched a lot of dogs in 8 and 12 inches, but didn't see anyone really run how Mum had planned. And we were sixth into the 16 inch dogs, so we didn't get to really watch any of the 16's either.

Mum's plan was to run with me on the three jumps, then when I landed in line with the Frame, she pivoted in place and said 'Frame', worked like a charm. No babysitting, just trusting me to know what to do, and I did. One other thing that she did was tell me all the way from the car to the start line - 'JoJo, three jumps to the Frame, buddy, Frame; yep that's it jump, jump, jump frame'. And, believe it or not, she thinks it really helped.

So we ended up pretty darn good today with a DQ, an MX and MXJ, and a first place (got sixth in JWW, which isn't so bad up against those fast Ohio pups). Wowser! We are soooo excited. Now we're going back Sat and Sun and it's off to the MACH....