Thanksgiving AKC Fun!

(This is an older picture of Rip that I just bought this weekend as it was on sale)

There's a local (10 minutes away) 3day AKC trial after Thanksgiving every year that I like to attend. The downside is the arena is not heated, and is often affectionately called things like The Icebox, The Arctic, The Meat Locker, etc. This weekend was no exception - you could definitely see your breath in the mornings as we had temps in the teens, though it warmed up enough to not need your coat by the afternoon.

Skye and Rip had a really good showing at this trial.
Friday is Excellent only, so Rip was only along for the ride. Skye had two really good runs, and Q'd JWW with about 8th place, though he was called for his AFrame contact on an otherwise nice and fast Standard run. Skye loves to run in the cold!

On Saturday, I had a perfect day with the boys - both went 2 for 2! I again had fast running Skye and he placed 3rd in Standard (about 30 dogs in the 20" group this weekend). He followed it up with a really nice JWW run, I think about 7th place.

At our last AKC trial, Rip had finally moved to Open Standard, though he already had 1 qualifier in Open Jumpers. So, on Saturday he got his first open Standard Q with a nice run, though slow on his contacts (better than launched!). He also had a nice JWW run for a Q, but he ran cautiously - he has a LOT more speed to give me.

On Sunday, we weren't quite as successful, but it was still a good day. Skye missed his dogwalk contact so that run turned to a training run, and I pushed him and he did well. I mishandled the last 3 obstacles and caused him to spin and end up taking the finish jump from the back side! He was having a really fast run up to that point. In JWW, there was an interesting sequence from the weaves over 3 jumps to a tunnel, with the offcourse side staring right at the dog. I was out of position for my planned line and tried to throw in a last minute front cross that didnt work as I was too far past the jump and I pulled Skye off the jump instead.

Rip missed the same dogwalk contact in his Open Standard run. When I gave him a big 'Oh No', he then went around the chute - so we just ran for fun and finished it upbeat. The last run of the day for us was Rip's Open JWW, and he nailed it! He had a great run, and now he has his Open JWW Title. Next trial we will be trying Excellent A JWW!
I have video that I will post soon.