CSPC AKC trial - January 2009

We were in Castle Rock again this weekend but for AKC instead of USDAA.
Saturday was a good day. Summit qualified in Ex. B Standard with a 4th place and Ex. A Jumpers with a 1st place (is that a "baby" double Q? :-)

Saturday's Standard course was very difficult with a lot of challenges. Sage had two wrong courses. I was amazed Summit ran it clean although I ran him second so changed my handling a bit after seeing the mistakes I made with Sage.

Sage did qualify in Jumpers with a beautiful run (might have been 6th or 7th place). Summit's time would have put him in 2nd place in Ex. B. Not bad! Here are the videos of Summit's Ex. A jumpers run and Sage's Ex. B jumpers run. I handled the course the same with both dogs. Summit's time was 22.06 and Sage's time was 23.94.

Sage:



Summit:


Sunday's standard course was FUN! A perfect course for Sage! I saw a QQ in our future. Not to be... I rotated too slowly during a front cross at the bottom of the a-frame and sent Sage over the wrong jump:-( Other than that, she had a beautiful run. Again, I ran Summit second and chose not to front cross at the bottom of the a-frame and other than a missed wp entry (the only one for that weekend), he too had a nice run.

Sage missed a wp entry that afternoon in Sunday's jumpers run. But I was really pushing her for speed and put a little too much pressure at the weavepoles and she went in at the second pole.

Summit had a nice jumpers run but dropped the second to last bar. His time would have been the fastes time in both Ex. A and Ex. B classes.

Sage didn't miss a single contact all weekend and Summit got all his wp entries except one. His starline stays were solid and he is collecting better at the table and when I cue front crosses. He is stopping at the bottom of the A-frame with 20/20 and is waiting for the verbal release but is releasing himself at the dogwalk. He also is starting to come off on the side of the contact whenever I move laterally from the dw. Still in the contact zone but not driving to the end like I want him to. So we'll be working on that in our training sessions. I may need to get the target back out to reinforce the bottom position.