Played AKC in the dirt this weekend with the girls. We had fun, challenging courses and nice, forgiving judges.
Black Dog ran really well for me, though she has officially accepted me and I have lost the grace period as a New Handler, meaning she will no longer wait at the start line. Darn. She manged to finish her OA/OAJ anyways Saturday and got a nice first Q in ExA JWW today.
The Dog finished her AXJ on Saturday (no thanks to me and my missed walk through! Actually an amazing run considering I had to read the numbers...) and moved into "B" today where she also qualified... barely! The off course tunnel lured her like a Siren of the sea BOTH times she had to pass by. The first time she actually stopped and looked at me in disbelief. Clearly she contested the jump as the correct obstacle. It was with begrudging steps that she came in for it eventually. The second time was hairy, but she was more amicable about the redirect.
She also had a very nice Standard run on Saturday with a qualifier. I was surprised, as I walked the course and then decided it would be more fun to experiment with some new material than it would be to try and run clean. So my goals were to mange the turn off the DW (since an off course jumped loomed in a straight line off the DW), and to try the weird backy-uppy blind wrap...thing. Move. Whatever. I've run it in practice and the usual result yielded was a super tight wrap. I thought the wrap back to the Aframe was an ideal place to give it a go, as yet another off course tunnel was set to draw to dogs out.
Low and behold- it all worked! The wrap maneuver wasn't super tight, but she followed me and didn't take advantage of my back turned to dive into the tunnel. The DW part was also great- an amazing left turn to the correct jump. Very happy with this run, and I think she ended with the 6th best time in 20" too.
Here is the video from today's Standard class- no, not an instant replay, but both girls, just eerily similar. I missed their weave entries... yep, plural- same error with BOTH girls. Ga! Bad Leader! Oh well. Still a lot of good stuff. The Dog was really moving, so I will take that any day (especially since she started out Saturday a bit freaky). She finally swam the poles- YAY! And Black Dog held her contacts and managed the jumping portion in the beginning so well.
On this side of the weekend, NEXT weekend is practically here! We have THE SEMINAR next weekend! I am so excited for the opportunity to work with such an accomplished handler. I am hoping for good feedback and suggestions on improving some lingering issues. Still crossing fingers for magical solutions on the DW too! Yep, totally reasonable expectations. That's how we roll in Project Go Dog.
Those were awesome!! Love the running contacts, but a bit lower in the A might be needed. G FANTASTIC!!! I wish I was coming up next week for the Sylvia seminars!! Those will be awesome! Have fun! I know you will!
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