DSA AKC January 17-18

This trial was at JeffCo and 5 minutes from the house which was really nice. The judge was Jean Munger from Chicago. I liked her courses but boy were they tough!

I was so pleased with Sage's runs. No wrong courses on some very tricky sequences. Saturday I pulled her out of the weavepoles by moving laterally too soon and that afternoon in jumpers, I did the same thing again (I KNOW better). Otherwise, she had beautiful runs on Saturday. I was very thrilled with her Saturday Standard run because the course began with jump, dogwalk, tunnel (the correct entrance NOT in the dog's path). This has always been very difficult for us since Sage has running contacts and no verbal directionals. I collected her slightly at the dowside of the dw, let her run through the contact and at the same time, moved laterally towards the correct end of the tunnel. She read that perfectly.
Sunday's standard run was nice too. The beginning was two off set jumps into the weavepoles. Many dogs missed the entry. I decided to stay on the right side and rear-cross the weaves. I led out to the second jump, held my position and as soon as she got the entry, I rear crossed. Later, she was called for a missed AF contact but other than that, the run was very nice. That afternoon she had a smokin' fast Jumpers run and she placed second.

Saturday Standard




Sunday Standard



Sunday Jumpers




I am so proud of my girlie! I have been following Linda Mecklenberg's handling system since last Spring. I was looking for a better way to handle Sage since she is hearing impaired (left ear) and does not triangulate very well (especially indoors). It has taken awhile for me to learn and apply it (Sage already knew it of course:-) but it is really starting to come together and Sage is very happy that I am finally speaking her language.

Summit had two nice Jumpers runs (but with two dropped bars in each). He did have the fastest time in Sunday's jumpers run of all classes combined.
He never made it past the dogwalk in both standard classes since he is releasing himself from the contact. Since this is behavior I am only getting in the ring, I made the decision to leave the ring when he does this. I have gone back to the basics in training to make sure he really understands the release. I am confident he understands the 20/20. So that has been one of our training goals this week. Also, it has been awhile since we've done any jump training so it's back to some foundation jump drills as well.

Other than the dropped bars and dw contact, he had good wp entries and solid startline stays all weekend.