Double Q's for both dogs at the MHGRC AKC trial!

Three days of competition for Soleil and two days for Summit (he tore his pad on Saturday so had to stay home on Sunday).

Friday was 0/4. Summit had nice runs but dropped a bar in Standard and a bar in Jumpers. Soleil had a wrong course in Jumpers and a refusal in Standard (I didn't anticipate how fast she would come shooting out of a tunnel and so was too far behind to cue the next obstacle).

Saturday, both dogs qualified in both their runs. Summit won Standard and placed 2nd in Jumpers. Soleil placed in both Excellent A Standard and Excellent B Jumpers but I can't remember the places. She did earn her Ex. A title and moved up to Ex. B in Standard. So now she is in Ex. B in both classes and those double qualifiers actually count towards Nationals now.

When I got Summit out of his crate to put him in the car, he was limping. Turned out he burned a pad and although not serious and he was fine the next morning, I left him at home. He has the RM Regionals in two weeks.

Sunday Soleil ran her first course in Excellent B. She qualified with a 2nd place. That afternoon she ran clean in Jumpers (5th place I think) to earn her first REAL QQ!

I can't believe the maturity and focus on this baby girl! She is not even two years old yet. My goals are still to proof our training in the ring and to have fun (no pressure) but she is performing like a much more experienced dog. I am still working on my timing; especially with front crosses. In Saturday's Standard video, I am quite late in cueing the turn in two of the front crosses. She takes it in stride though and figures eventually, I will get it right ;-)

Here are some videos from the weekend.

Soleil Friday Jumpers
She did not respond to my lateral motion. Typical baby dog. I remember Summit doing this when cued a turn with lateral motion in a box. The forward motion component is stronger and as you can see, I have way more foreward motion than lateral when she commits to the jump before the turn. In hindsight, I should have moved much closer to this jump so that my lateral motion would be more obvious.


Summit Saturday Standard
I liked this course because there were so many different ways to handle it. I could not get the FC after the tunnel so improvised with a funky little wrap on the flat to cue the table.



Summit Jumpers with Weaves
I find it interesting that for the most part, I choose the same strategy for both dogs.



Soleil Excellent A Standard
How many LATE front crosses can you count!



Soleil Jumpers with Weaves
Ok, this is a beautiful run.



Soleil Sunday Excellent B Standard
Her first Q in Excellent B Standard and her first real QQ!Jen missed the first part of the run which was jump-aframe-jump-jump-panel...



Soleil Sunday Jumpers with Weaves
Nice run except that I overhandled the tunnel end discrimination (really, there wasn't much of a discrimination) and I almost pulled her off.



We have two weeks off and then head down to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Rocky Mountain Regionals!