Envy's First Trial!

I entered Envy in one day of the annual 3 day Thanksgiving weekend AKC trial at Latigo, which is the facility about 10 minutes from my house. I sat on the wait-list up until the very last day before the wait list closed and just made it into the show. I only entered Envy for this one, as it would be her debut and I wanted it to be all about her.

Her birthday is February 27th, which put her at 1 year and 9 months old. AKC will let you compete your dog as early as 1 year, 3 months old, but to me, that is too early. I felt that Envy was finally ready for a competition and I was very excited to see how she would do.

There were only about 10 dogs total entered in Novice at this trial - nearly everyone runs Masters. Her first run would be Standard. In typical novice fashion, the course was pretty straightforward.
Here is the course:

Envy did great! She had a little struggle finding the weaves, which surprised me a bit, but she got them finally. Her contacts were nice, her speed was nice and she ran happy and appeared to be having fun with no sign of stress. She gave me a nice leadout to start and read my cues very well. We ended with the tire, which she scooted under (ha!) but I brought her back and she took it to finish. We earned a Q with this run, though that was not my concern at all.

Envy first AKC Standard, November 30, 2014.


At the end of the day, almost literally, as we were the 2nd to last dog of the trial, we got to do our Jumpers run.
The course looked fun and had opportunity for some nice speed.
This is the map:

I made the mistake of not setting her up well for the first jump - I let her look off to the wrong direction and then just released her, causing her to come into me instead of heading to the weaves. After a quick reset, she hit the weaves and then I sent to the tunnel and took off fast. 

Well, with a less experienced dog, you have to remember to support all the obstacles! She flew out of the tunnel and sucked in toward me and didnt take the #4 jump. I put on the brakes and brought her back so we could run that fast line. She did it like a champ!

I put in a blind cross between #8 and 9 which she read perfectly. I had thought I would do another blind between #13 and #14 but chickened out of it and caused a mishandled rear cross at #14 instead. She then finished up over the double for another awesome Envy performance. 

I really couldn't be happier with our first runs! She has so much potential and I think we are off to a great start. 

I plan on debuting her in USDAA in January. Before that, I will work more weaves in sequence and getting her to recognize them in flow, and maybe I will put her through a tire or two again :)