Monday, November 8, 2010

November AKC Trial

Philip and I went to another trial this weekend. Nothing overly exciting happened, so I'll make this quick.

Saturday Standard was a disaster. I forgot to bring a toy to get Philip focused on me before the run, and with it being early morning, he had way too much energy on his paws. So when he got to the course and off-leash, he went a little crazy and paid very little attention to what I was saying. He took a bunch of wrong courses, got refusals, and skipped obstacles, but at least he had a lot of fun :)

Before going to Jumpers, we met a doggie friend, so Philip got to play and get some of his craziness out. He was much more focused on me during the Jumpers run, but still messed up the weave pole entry earning us an NQ, though the rest of the run was very good.

On Sunday I made sure to bring Philip's toy with me, and it made a huge difference in his craziness level. Unfortunately, the beginning of the Standard course was a little tricky, and I think I should have handled it differently, but in any case Philip ended up taking a tunnel one jump too early, earning himself a wrong course and an NQ.

Last but not least, Sunday Jumpers was a nice course with only a couple of tricky spots, and Philip attacked it like a pro, made no mistakes, and earned a Q. The only Q of the weekend, this was our 3rd Q in Excellent A JWW, so Philip finished is AXJ title and will be moving up to Excelled B JWW!

I find it funny how his ability switched all of a sudden, and Jumpers got better than Standard after all the earlier struggles. I wonder if it'll switch back sometime, or better yet even out to both courses being good :)