I’m home this weekend after taking Thursday and Friday to do our semi-annual AKC trial. Actually the last couple of years it was an ANNUAL AKC trial, but I wanted to finish up some titles on Bryce and Jayda so I’m going for 2 this year .

BTW, If you ever want to really disorient yourself as to what day it is, do a midweek trial!

Once again, the weather was weird, ranging from cool (50’s) to hot (upper 70’s), rainy to sunny – all in one day! It’s getting so I don’t know what to wear or what to bring anymore!

It was raining Thursday morning – not pouring rain, just an unpleasant drizzle. The grounds were soaking wet but the ring footing was good. We started out with Jumpers with Weaves – Jayda had just moved up to Open, Bryce needed one Q to complete the NJP he started 2 years ago (at last year’s trial he wasn’t feeling well so he didn’t run). Jayda ran a nice course, uncharacteristically popping out of the weaves early but in Open you’re allowed 1 of those so we fixed it and kept going The rest was perfect, that was her first Open Jumpers Q :)!

I’d been jumping Bryce really low for about 6 months and wasn’t sure how he’d deal with going back 12″. No problem, he was fine and I think he actually ENJOYED jumping “real” jumps again! Q and title for Brycey! I’d only entered him in jumpers and sort of regretted it because he obviously wanted to do more both days, but like the weather I have no way to predict how he’ll be feeling when I enter these trials.

Next was Novice Standard – Jayda ran a nice course except for the table. She USED to have a really nice automatic down on the table, but I realized we haven’t done a formal table for the last 6 months! She hopped right up and sat there, looking at me blankly (getting increasingly stressed) while I tried to get her to drop into a down! I finally managed to get her to lie down and we went on to qualify, but we wasted a LOT of time on that – she Q’d and was under time (thank goodness for generous course times), but it was close. Thursday evening I made a point of reinforcing a lot of random “down’s” when we got home, which helped a little. Friday she was slow again but not as slow as the day before. She finished that course well under time to get her Novice title (NAP).

Then came the FAST class. FAST is AKC’s distance class, like Gamblers/Chances/Jackpot. Generally in these types of classes there’s some way to “launch” your dog into the distance challenge. Thursday’s course (at all levels) was an ugly beast that either left you standing flatfooted at some point in the send or had you running AWAY from the direction of the challenge, even in Novice! I wanted to make a run at it from a tunnel, but the end of the teeter was so close to my path I was afraid of running into it, so I tried to launch Jayda from the teeter. Unfortunately, that didn’t give her enough momentum to complete the challenge on the first try – she missed a jump and backjumped. She did get it a second attempt, but of course that didn’t count. Not many qualifiers in ANY level on that course. Maybe I’ll post the course map later.

Friday’s FAST was MUCH better and very do-able. Jayda got an easy Q to finish her Novice FAST (NFP) title. Bryce would have enjoyed that course – maybe if we do more AKC this year I’ll enter him in FAST.

After Jayda’s run, I noticed there’d been an error in the time – they forgot to set the timer for the extra 3 seconds she gets running in Preferred. Not a problem, as she was mid-air over the finish jump when the buzzer went off (and it wouldn’t have made a difference for the other dogs), but something to be aware of next time.

Friday ended with Jumpers. Again, Bryce ran clean and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately for Jayda, people were starting to take down their tents when I ran her – something which always spooks her. She tried, but couldn’t hold it together – oh well, that’s Jayda.

By now, Raven must be thinking that trials are someplace you hang out in the car, walk around, schmooze and play tug with your “rattie”. Is she going to be surprised one of these days when I throw her in the ring and ask her to DO something !

It was fun seeing all the people we know who do mostly or all AKC that I never see anymore! And we accomplished exactly what I set out to do – our grand total, 8 runs, 6 Q’s, 6 first places, 3 new titles. Not too shabby :),