Rip gets his AXJ!

I am finally getting around to writing about our 3 day AKC show from last weekend. It was at Latigo, which is not my favorite facility but is certainly the closest to home at just 10 minutes away, so I always sign up for trials when they are available. It was really cold in the building on Friday and Saturday, since the arena is not heated. This isn't great for me, but the dogs definitely love it!

This was a random draw trial, which I typically dont enter as I dont like the whole concept of maybe or maybe not getting in, but it was also the same judge (Lisa Selthofer) I had when Skye got his MACH, and she has some neat courses, so this was added incentive to get into the trial.

On Friday, they were running FAST class for all levels, along with Excellent Standard and JWW. Rip was only entered in Open FAST and Exc. A JWW. Skye got to play in all classes.

Skye ran FAST first and it was a neat tunnel/tunnel/tunnel distance challenge - he got the Q. I usually try to come up with a plan to get all 80 points if I can. For Skye, my plan was to get 77 points, which we did, but we were a couple seconds over time so ended up with 74 points I believe.
Rip ran basically the same course, though his distance in Open is 10ft instead of 15ft. Rip also got the distance challenge, and my plan for him was to get 79 points. We did that, but again were a couple seconds over the buzzer so ended up with 76 points I think.
Here is the course map:

Here are their videos:
Skye


Rip




We then ran Standard. Only Skye was running since when we entered this trial, Rip was still in Open STD.
Skye was running fast, but we had a bobble after the AFrame and he went directly to the dogwalk instead of over the jump first.

Skye Exc. STD Friday:



For JWW, Skye ran first since he is in EXC B and Rip is in EXC A.
Both dogs Q'd the JWW course - it was a fun course to run and Rip was about 2/10ths faster than Skye. Skye had a better read on the jump before the tunnel. I only have video of Rip for this one:
Rip Exc JWW Friday:



Saturday was a great day for both dogs as they each got a Double Q, though Rip's was a Double Q in Exc. A.
Rip earned his AXJ title with his really great jumpers run. Rip ran this course about 1.2 seconds faster than Skye did, and I thought that Skye ran it really well. We were about 2 seconds off the fastest time. They were very close on time in the Standard course, though I felt they both ran the first half of the course very conservatively.

Rip Exc. A JWW Saturday



Skye Exc. B JWW Saturday



Rip Exc. A STD Saturday



Skye Exc. B STD Saturday



I dont yet have the video from Sunday's runs, but they were not quite as good as Saturday. I ended up with a Q for Skye in JWW and no Q's for Rip. I made the same handling mistake for both dogs in Standard. It was a Tire / Jump / Chute sequence after the table, and I drove both dogs too much before the sharp turn to the chute and they both ran around the back of it! I should have noticed that this required deceleration for the turn.

In Rip's JWW, I took my eyes off him briefly which then caused him to go behind me into the wrong end of a tunnel. It was an otherwise nice run.

Here are the Sunday courses:

Overall this was a really good trial for us. Rip did not miss any contacts and I believe he only dropped 1 bar the whole weekend. Skye was running fast and motivated and listened for his contacts with the exception of Sunday's STD.