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| Spice earns her NAJ |
This weekend was AKC agility in New Iberia, Louisiana. It was cold both days so we were bundled up until Sunday afternoon.
Spice seemed more distracted than usual on Saturday and I'm not sure why. She was a bit distracted in her Nov Standard run. The next class was Nov JWW so she ran again ~30 minutes later. She just ran a few jumps and let her self out of the ring to get cookies - she was waiting politely by her crate when the first person got there. She was put in her crate and with no cookies. The following class was T2B in which Spice was also entered. She did great on a short sequence at the start of the course: tunnel, jump, jump, jump..and then the course turned toward away to the weaves. We did the first 4 obstacles, waved at the judge, and went for cookies.
Sunday Spice and I worked attention by the ring with the larger masters dogs running. A few of the herding dogs can be quite noisy barkers when they run. She got lots of cookies for ignoring dogs around her and focusing on me. This may have helped because we had two much better runs on Sunday. She was working a Q until the dog walk contact in standard (next to last obstacle) - underdog exit in her excitement. We got a Q in JWW for her NAJ title. For JWW run we were truly a team with a perfect opening sequence - a glimpse of my awesome partner to come. We got several compliments on that run from the small crowd still at the show. Open JWW here we come. Video compilation minus JWW and T2B Saturday. After watching the video I see I still need to stand up straighter and run FASTER!!!
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| Grace earns OAP leg 2 |
Grace, as usual, ran Open standard both days. This judge was very forgiving on Grace's less than smooth weaving style. Grace managed a bobbly set of weaves with a Q on Saturday. She was trying so hard both days. On Sunday the triple was after the A-frame and we took the last bar on the triple. I think she took off a bit early - we may have been going a bit fast since we just came down the A-frame. I'm still very happy with her effort this weekend. She has a few more chances this season to get her last OAP leg. If she finishes that up and still wants to run we may do some more T2B - she has at least 1 Q and 10 points. With Grace I am running much slower than with Spice - I just need to remember to trot with Grace and RUN with Spice.
The least curvy route home from the arena goes through the town of St. Martinville. The Evangeline Oak sits along Bayou Teche in St. Martinville a few blocks off the road we were driving down. Since it was still early afternoon we took the short detour to see the tree. This is the tree made famous by Longfellow's Poem, Evangeline.
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| Evangeline Oak |
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| Bayou Teche |
