West Palm Night Trial

Hey there! Remember us? Two cute, silly spotty dogs and one not-quite-as-cute, but equally silly blonde? :)

Peyton and I headed over to West Palm Beach for a night trial this weekend and while it was hot (so-so-so miserably hot), we had a great time. I love night trials. The trial started at 6 pm both days and on Friday we were done before 10 pm and Saturday we were pulling out at 9 pm. It was a relatively small trial, but I would much rather run at night than in the morning!

Peyton was awesome! We have done pretty much zero agility training this summer so I figured that we would be a little rusty, but it seems that the only rusty one was me!

Our first run was standard and Peyton was on fire! We were having one of those runs where everything was clicking until near the end when I had a momentary loss of spacial awareness (how's that for a description?) and lost Peyton to an off-course teeter. Ahhhhhh, bummer. Totally my fault though and I felt pretty bad for letting him hang out on the teeter wondering what happened while I was searching for my brain. So I tried to finish on a happy note and then we had a big party - it was a really nice run.

In JWW, I chickened out a bit on my plan for the opening which caused a refusal since Peyton thought we were going to the weaves. The rest of the run was decent, but an obnoxious front cross on my part caused a bar.

We had a great start to our standard run on Saturday, but missed the tunnel/a-frame discrimination. That was a bit of a surprise, but I made sure to keep going this time (click for me!) and other than a bit of a delay on the table (I'm SO looking forward to the position-less table!), the rest of the run was nice.

The JWW course was pretty tough for us, but we managed to make it (somewhat awkwardly) through the opening. Of course I had to send Peyton to the wrong end of the tunnel near the end. :) My fault, again - I really struggle with long, fast lines followed by a change of direction. Oh well, something to work on!

I'm super proud of Peyton! We might have a lousy Q-rate, but it's definitely not a reflection of his performance. I don't think he could have given me much more, especially running in that kind of nasty heat and humidity. Good spotty!

We've got another month off and then our trial season will start back up in September. I'm excited! AND I think Indy will be making her AKC debut at our trial in September - probably only JWW, but it should be fun. :)

Oh, and I have some new spotty pictures to share (FINALLY) so hopefully those will be up in a few days.