Sunday, May 30, 2010

One Year!

This weekend we're celebrating an anniversary! Hard to believe, but we had our first AKC trial weekend exactly one year ago. Since then we've enjoyed a lot of ups, a few downs, and many great experiences, including 7 AKC titles. I'm so, so proud of Peyton and it's been an incredible journey so far!

On Friday we attended a match and my only goal was to attempt to work on startline stays. We had 3 runs and on the first try he broke several times before holding his stay. The next two were rock solid, but he was definitely showing some signs of stress despite lots of praise. Our first run on Saturday was FAST and let's just say that the practice did not transfer! He had a nice run though and was just a few points shy of qualifying. I've (once again) decided to scrap the stay and will likely revisit it at some point down the road. It's frustrating since he has such a great stay in practice, but I'd much rather run a happy dog than a stressed one.

After our FAST warm-up, we started with JWW and had a pretty decent run with just a few mistakes. Later our standard run started off well, but I got a little impatient and he took an off-course jump and then seemed to get pretty stressed at the weaves. I'm a little stumped...his weaves are usually the one thing I can count on, but it seems like they are partially broken at the moment. Otherwise, we had some nice moments and a few areas that still need some work. I wasn't a huge fan of the courses, but at least we didn't completely butcher them. :)


Today was another NQ day, but we had a lot of fun. Peyton seemed much happier! We started again with JWW and at one point I got stuck watching Peyton and when I turned around I realized I was sending him right into an off course tunnel - bad handler! I could have kicked myself...such a silly mistake. :) Our standard run was also pretty good, but I failed to cue a turn early enough which led to an off-course jump. Then near the end, I actually pulled him off a jump! It's funny, but I was pretty happy with that since he was so responsive. On another good note, his weaves were perfect!


And just for fun, here's our video from our first day last year...I had forgotten about the time he stopped to scream at the judge. :)


Hopefully tomorrow will be another fun day!

2 comments:

Kim said...

Thanks Paula! It was a tough weekend...I caught part of your JWW on Sunday from a far and it looked like you guys had an awesome run going until you pulled a "Kim" at the serp near the end. :) Alex looks great though...love to watch him run!

Kim said...

Well, if we were perfect it would be boring. Right? Um, sure. :) And yes, we'll be at DACOF! Looking forward to it...