Skye qualifies for AKC Nationals and Rip gets a Title!

I like this annual 3 day AKC trial after Thanksgiving as it's close to home and I've got the time off anyway. Skye and I were going into this trial needing just 25 more Mach points to qualify for AKC Nationals. Note to self - next year do a couple more AKC trials so we dont come down to the last weekend to try and earn those points!

I am really happy to say that we got those 25 points! Actually, we got 31 points, so 6 to spare, HA! We managed to only get 2 Q's this weekend, on different days, so no double Q's this time. We were clean in Friday's JWW run, and then first thing on Saturday in STD, so then I could run and it didn't really matter as we had met our goal. I was pushing a little more than usual so I caused a bar to come down in each of our other JWW runs, but they were very nice. Our STD run on Sunday was great except for a missed dogwalk contact. Friday's STD was a mess - Skye checked his focus at the gate so yee haw!

So, on to Rip's weekend performance. My Rip boy ran very well for me this weekend and though we only came away with one Q out of the 4 runs, I feel like we were connected and both had a good time. If you read my last post about contacts you will note that I had started to introduce a 2on2off in practice. It's still at a very early stage, and I am only doing 2o2o with the dogwalk. I am Thrilled to say that Rip hit BOTH dogwalk contacts in his standard runs. He had not hit one in any prior run. Now, since neither STD run was a Q, we did manage to find other small issues. In Saturday's standard run, he stepped on the broad jump. That was his only fault on an otherwise great run, but its equivalent to dropping a bar, so NQ. In Saturday's JWW run, he did great and Q'd, earning his Novice Jumpers title and letting us move to Open for Sunday.

On Sunday, Rip's standard run was nice, though he came off the side of the teeter and then hit turbo boost and launched his AFrame contact. Still though, he was running fast and with lots of enthusiasm. In our first Open Jumpers course, I didnt support a jump enough for him after I front crossed, causing him to come around it, and then he backjumped it instead.

So a fun filled weekend with goals met - cant beat that! Lots of good friends there to cheer on and some who just came along to cheer for us! The weather even turned out great.

I will have video to post soon.