Toledo KC Trials

I showed all 3 dogs at Toledo KC's weekend trials. On Saturday, Joker was in the 1st group in Open B. He not only got through the individuals, but also did the dratted sit stay and earned his 1st CDX leg. Hurray!

Gryff had a nice Open B run, earned a 197, was in a 4-way runoff for 4th place, and didn't win the runoff :-). He was having a beautiful run in Utility B, with only 1.5 points off on the 1st three exercises (Moving Stand, DJ, Signals), when he anticipated his finish after I took the glove on the DR. I think I did something odd with my left hand, so I will accept at least partial blame. First article was fine - in fact, he did GREAT pickups and deliveries all weekend - and then, darn it, he anticipated the final finish on the 2nd article. With the 6 points off for those 2 anticipated finishes, he STILL had a 192! Dang. Happily, UDX leg #7 was in the bag.

Ty was entered in Novice this weekend for 2 final times, which I decided a couple of weeks ago. She had a no-sit on the last off-leash sit, after which the judge immediately said, "You caused that, you stopped funny." I can't disagree :-). Perfect recall, hurray! Ended up with a 194, out of the placements for the first time. It was an excellent class, with some really fine Novice dogs. I decided to take the plunge and move her up to Open B for Sunday after checking with Sunday's judge about the likelihood of there again being 3 groups of stays.

Joker was first in Open B today at 9:00. He decided that he really didn't need me to tell him when to do his drop on recall, and did a lovely one about 1/3 of the way to me. Given that that is a problem that has been just waiting to happen, I wasn't that surprised. I'm just grateful that he did his sit stay again! He did once again put a smile on the judge's face :-).

Gryff had another solid Open B performance, and this time, we ran off for 1st place, the first time this has happened (we are still seeking the Open B 1st needed for his OTCh). It took 2 runoffs for Kerry Allison and Alax to beat us out. They took home High in Trial with their 198+. Our knocking on the Open B 1st door is getting louder . We got 3 more OTCh. points for our 2nd place in Open B. He also got 4th place in Utility B for 1 more point. The 4 weekend points gets us to 61. We also earned UDX leg #8.

I came out of Utility with Gryff and had to grab Ty and go right into Open with her. It was good heeling was last :-). She was my little fire cracker of a teammate today! She did a lovely job while being completely on the edge of anticipating pretty much everything :-). It was a lot of fun. Sadly, her sit stay only lasted 2:40 before she went down, but I knew the whole thing was a gamble, especially the out-of-sights (we've done a lot of long stays, but not much out-of-sight work), and I'm thrilled that she only lost 2.5 points on the individual exercises. She had SO much more fun doing Open than one more trip in the Novice ring! Now that I know she's close to ready enough, I plan to really get serious about stay training and polishing the rest of the class and I will enter her again at the Fulton Co KC trials that will be mid-March at TKC. Nice to have a concrete goal .

I'd also like to congratulate:
* Russ Hornfisher & Golden Morgan for finishing up their UD title yesterday, and Q'ing again today.
* Deanne Matthews & Cocker Spaniel Magnum for finishing up their CD title yesterday, and earning 4th place yesterday and 3rd place today.
• Jill Baker & Sheltie Hobbit on their 2nd CDX leg yesterday, earning 2nd place (if I'm remembering correctly).
• Kay Braddock & GWP Jet on their Q in Open B yesterday in their 1st attempt at a UDX leg. They almost got one, too, except for Jet taking the HJ twice in Utility.
• Belinda Venner & Sparta on their 4th place in Open B today.
• Deanna German & Dash on the 1st CDX leg in Open A today, the lone survivor.
• Jackie Takacs & Golden Monty for their Novice placements, including a lovely and smooth 1st place today.
• Kathy Cox on her 7th & 8th UDX legs on Chase (Gryffin and Chase finished their UD's on the same day in October 2007 and seem to be getting to their UDX's at the same rate :-)) and a 4th in Open B yesterday, and her new Novice girl, Haley, for her Novice placements this weekend.

There were a lot of others that were close to a Q. Better luck next time!

Thanks to all the people at TKC who worked to put on the trials. Great judges, great stewards, GREAT food (oh, those desserts...).