All qualified up.

My quest to qualify both Rip and Skye for AKC Nationals ended last weekend - that was our last trial before the end of the qualifying period, and our last trial of 2012.

Both dogs did great and we ended up with about 50 points each to spare. Three weeks ago, Skye had a perfect weekend going 4/4 and earning all the points that he needed, and Rip did pretty well going 2/4 and getting the remaining few points he needed, so this past weekend turned out to be just a bonus for us.

This was a 1 ring AKC trial and oddly enough, there was also a 1 ring USDAA trial about a half hour away on the same weekend - something that doesn't occur very often. Most of the really fast dogs must have attended the USDAA trial because Rip and Skye ended up being two of the fastest dogs at the AKC show.

Skye ended up going 3/4 with a 1st place in Standard and 3rd and 5th places in Jumpers. Rip went 2/4, getting two 2nd place finishes in the Jumpers classes.
Sunday's Standard course was pretty tough, and only 4 of the dogs in the 20B class managed to Q. Skye ended up leaving the weaves early, and Rip went behind me to the offcourse dogwalk when I took my eyes off him coming out of a tunnel. Rip's fault in Saturday's standard run was a jumped AFrame contact, and for good measure he hit the top bar of the triple, which was the last obstacle.

So here are the runs from last weekend. Looks like we will be in Tulsa in March next year for the Nationals!