Day 2 of obedience at the 2009 FCRSA National

On Tuesday, I showed Gryffin in Versatility, where he earned a leg towards that new title. We had to do the Novice Heel on Leash & Figure 8, the Novice Recall, the Retrieve on Flat, the Broad Jump, the Moving Stand, and the Directed Retrieve. He got 2nd place in the class, 1/2 point behind Chris Van Byssum and Eagle.

Next up was Brace. Gryffin was kind of blah in both classes, and didn't start on the Figure 8 for some reason. I got all the way to the end of his leash before I really realized he was stuck, so had to give another command. On the start of the 2nd 8, I got smart and said, "Gryff heel" since Ty was chugging right along. The 2nd one was much better. The off-leash heeling went very nicely, garnering nice comments from judge Tibby Chase. On the recall, on my "Dogs come!" command, Ty rocketed in and Gryff sat like a lump. When I realized he wasn't moving, I gave a come signal to Gryffin, at which point Ty dropped :-). This video doesn't show all that. Ty had come into a nice front by the time Gryff arrived. He fortunately came to the correct side of Ty. Their finish was not so great, but at least they were both there to do it . We were 2nd of the two braces thanks to the recall. Here's a link to the YouTube video of our performance.

Team was a hoot, as it usually is. We had really good heeling & Figure 8s, but Ty sat during the SFE, and only two of our dogs did the recall correctly. All 4 dogs on the first place team did the drop exercise correctly. For those who haven't seen the exercise, all handlers leave together, and then one at a time, call and drop their dog about half way. Then all call their dogs to front at the same time, and then finish on the judge's command. It is the make-or-break exercise, typically. One of the teams first handler called and got all four dogs at once :-). Anyhow, we ended up with 2nd place and had a lot of fun.