April AKC Trial 2

Alright, here's a quick recap of the trial this last weekend.

On Saturday we started off with Standard, which was a very difficult course. Philip did great to start with and got through all the hard parts, but unfortunately took the wrong side of the tunnel towards the end :( Figures that he'd mess up something easy like that. I'm not complaining though - only three 8-inch dogs qualified this run!

Jumpers was a nice course, and Philip ran fairly well, but again took the wrong side of one of the tunnels. Somebody told me that I leaned incorrectly and that's what probably caused him to change direction. That might very well be so, unfortunately I didn't have a video to review this run.

We had FAST on Saturday, and the send was interesting, but was the same as a part of the earlier Jumpers course (including the tunnel Philip messed up). It played to our advantage that the dogs had practiced that little part earlier, and Philip was a star. He got through the send bonus without any hesitation at all, and we got a total of 68 points to get us a Q. The timer malfunctioned a bit, but since Philip was the only dog in his class height, the judge asked if we'd be okay with SCT as our time. I accepted - better than risking failing a re-run :) Just one more ExA FAST leg to go!

On the Sunday Standard run Philip's bratty not-paying-attention attitude made a slight appearance. He back-jumped a jump instead of wrapping around it as he should have right from the start. Later, he also blew right off the A-Frame ignoring my pleas to "pause", and went straight for an off-course Teeter. Weird dog, I hope I don't see that again anytime soon! Grrr...

Jumpers run was really tricky (same judge as Saturday's crazy Standard), but I carefully watched earlier dogs for spots that needed work. There were 3 spots that many dogs messed up - first was an off-course jump before which many handlers failed to get their dog's attention; second was a double jump out of the tunnel, and several handlers rushed forward without working it much, so the dogs blew past it; last was right at the end of the run, where the dogs had to tightly wrap around a jump before the finish line. I thought I had everything down, but right as we reached the first off-course jump, even though I called Philip's name, he paid me no attention and went for it anyway :( We did well on the double, and even the wrap at the end, but that first mistake caused up to NQ.

So we ended the weekend with just a single FAST Q, though that was a good one to have. Let's hope this weekend was a one-time set-back, and Philip doesn't go back to his aloof self again...