Trial last weekend!

We got to run in an AKC trial this past weekend! Fun times...fun courses...fun new friends.

The first day of the trial, on Friday, I continued my odd behavior of running around a few jumps. It's still baffling Mum because she didn't see that I was uncomfortable at all and didn't see that she was handling me any differently. Maybe I was still in snooker mode? Who knows. But the great news is that I was super speedy (much speedier than the video shows for the other two days)!!!

Even though I took a couple of extra jumps in my Friday STD run, I still came out with the second fastest time of the class. The first place time was speedy little BC, BOL!!!

So, on Saturday, Mum kind of overhandled me near the jumps to get me out of this nasty groove. It worked pretty well. Got a couple of Q's on Saturday, along with some nice points. And I even kept my speed up pretty well. Got fifth place on my STD run, a Q on my JWW run.

On Sunday I was pretty raring to go, again. Mum was happy to see my energy staying up for the whole weekend. I ran my STD run and got another Q, and another fifth place. Not a bad run, got some more points.

Then the last run of the weekend was my JWW run. Not the speediest by any means, but not too bad. But what did I do? Yep, ran past the very last jump. Mum didn't get video of that one to see what was up, but she was still proud of me :)

You'll notice I'm still not running full out on the courses, but better than last trial. One of the things that Mum thinks helped in prep for this trial are the 150 yard recalls we've been doing in the pasture nearly every day the past couple of weeks. Mum thinks it helped me get some good running full out off leash and helped with my speed. So we're going to keep that up.

We're getting closer to that MACH thing Mum keeps talking about. Maybe a couple of more trials if all goes well. Guess we'll see.

Here are my two STD Q's from the weekend. You can see how Mum is overhandling the jumps, staying very close to them (which probably slowed me down some), she's saying 'go jump,' 'go on,' anything that will keep me going over the jumps. Worked pretty well.

Oh and on that first STD run? Mum did a super nice blind cross after the frame which is kind of difficult to see. Really kept me focused on the chute coming up.

Gracie got to run (or should I saw run off, BOL!) in the B-Match on Saturday. Mum brought cooked chicken for both of us on Saturday and we think it made Gracie way, way, way over the top. She didn't take the full course, but she had some nice moments of brilliance, mixed in with a couple of run offs and come backs to Mum. She even did a few weaves, which is rare for Gracie at a venue.

Sigh...our Gracie girl, wadda we gonna do? Mum thinks, though, that if Gracie had run another run that day that she probably would have been much more focused. Gracie loves this venue and feels very comfortable there. So maybe next time we'll get to see what she does.