Well today marks a banner day for Grace. She earned her first qualifying score today in an AKC trial with a 4th place score of 96 in Rally Novice B. I think we probably lost most of our 4 points when she came around too far during the second pass at weaving through the cones (our first sign) and I had to let her circle me to get her back in place. She settled down and did quite nicely on the rest of the course. Her 1, 2, and 3 step backup fronts were enthusiastic but a little sloppy... I think she banged my knees before each sit. She was ecstatic when she discovered that obedience and rally ring time dispenses tuna just like agility. I mentioned the word "tuna' and was promptly dragged back to the crate for treats.
Bern did wild card open today. He was happy the entire time. His healing and figure 8s were not pretty. He did much better on his Figure 8s in class last week than he did in the ring today. Next he forgot to drop on the recall so we will work on this before tomorrow - Nedra pointed out that I need to be more firm and double signal since it is a non-regular class (we'll just loose a few points but maybe he would actually drop). On her way to pick up the unretrieved dumbbell, the judge encouraged him to come and then raced him out to the dumbbell since he hadn't even tried to pick it up before returning over the jump. Bern thought she was really a fun lady. The next exercise was the broad jump... he jump over the broad jump and went to visit the judge instead of coming to front. She was more directly in his path than I was so he went to her to get petted. Bern was a champ for his first real set of out of sight sits and downs - rock solid. Unfortunately, his score was not posted when we left the trial site.. I'm hoping to see it tomorrow because on Trial Day 2 I would like to score a few points higher.
