Wednesday, June 15, 2011

SOTC Obedience Trials

Queezle made her debut in Open A obedience and not only qualified, but scored a 191 1/2 and went 2nd place out of 29 dogs! She worked wonderfully, and Judge Bob Self couldn't say enough nice things about her. Good dog!

On day two things didn't go quite so well - it was raining very hard outside, and then something crashed a couple times in the hallway, which Queezle thought was thunder. She held herself together and did a decent job of heeling, but was clearly nervous and we eventually left. Naturally, the bad weather cleared up halfway through the class. Oh well - I'm still very pleased with how she worked on day one.

Tia was entered in Grad Open, which is sort of a stepping stone from Open to Utility. She really wasn't ready to be entered, but since it was our club's big trial we thought why not since she knew most of the exercises. Poor Tia had kind of a meltdown on Saturday when I gave her the drop command in the signal exercise, staring at me blankly. I was surprised because she usually does signals well in class, but whatever, on we went. I tried to keep her happy and "up" but she was acting very lost and confused. She did, however, pass the moving stand.

Our goal for Sunday was to keep Tia up and pass two exercises instead of just one. She was still sluggish, but much better - although she brought me the wrong glove on the directed retrieve, she did at least bring me one instead of trotting around aimlessly. Once again she passed the moving stand, and then to my immense surprise, she took the jump on directed jumping! I was very proud of her for that. Directed jumping and go outs were the two exercises that she didn't know at all when we sent in our entries, and we've been practicing for the 3 weeks since I finished up with finals. I was so pleased with her for that, and it was perfect because that way she ended on a high note.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Some Show Results


Once classes ended a few weeks ago, the dogs and I started hitting up various shows again.

First was the SOTC agility trial, where Tia had three qualifying runs in Excellent Jumpers and Flag the Ridgeback earned his second Novice Jumpers leg with a second place.

At the Alexander conformation shows, Queezle went Best of Breed both days. Belle the Vizsla showed well in the rain and mud but there was no competition for her.

Then we went to agility trials in Port Byron. Tia had another Q in Excellent Jumpers, and Queezle got her second Open standard leg!

This past weekend Queezle, Belle and I drove down to Wrightstown, PA for conformation shows. Belle went Winners Bitch the first two days, bringing her up to 3 points total. Queezle went Best of Breed every day, and on Sunday got a Herding Group 3!