Puli Club AKC Trial

We went to our first trial since the beginning of January yesterday - only one day since mom had to work on Saturday. Mom is terrible at guesstimating when we will run our first run so we got there way too early. So mom worked the Novice JWW class and I hung out with grandma. Then we got ready for our first try at Exc. B JWW. The course was not difficult and mom had a plan. It did start out slowly for us because tunnel to weaves is not super motivating for me. But I got faster after that. The only problem - MOM! She messed me up. See the course map below - well, mom forgot to do jumps #12 and 13 - she took me straight from #11 to #14 and then to make matters worse, she didn't support #15 so I followed her right past it. It's a shame about my handler because I was doing a GREAT job!! Check out how much speed I had in the jumps at the end of the run! Mom was disappointed in herself but I forgave her right away - it was all good to me!

Our wait for the standard run was not all that long. We needed a Q in this run to get our Open STD title. The first part went well - it was a good start for me, but even with the jump and then the tire, my dogwalk was pretty slow. Then as we went toward the aframe, mom was way over on the side and telling me to go to the aframe, but I was excited and saw that tunnel and ran all the way over there on my own and started into it. Mom called me and I came back and went up the aframe. I was a little leery of that judge doing all that walking around, so my sit on the table was slow. But check out my teeny little hesitation at the chute (probably my fastest chute in a trial) and then a fast teeter! After that, we were home free! We did it! I Q'ed and got second place (fortunately you can have one off-course in Open and still Q - whew!) and so I got my OA!

I had a good time at the trial. I got lots of chicken, I got to hang out with mom and grandma, I got to see lots of people and dogs, and I did some good agility!

Next weekend (or actually now it's already "this weekend") we are doing Saturday and Sunday of a trial in a horse barn - the site of the 2007 AKC Nationals in Sunbury. (At least I think it was the site of the 2007 Nationals). We've never been there before but we're assuming that it is a nice facility. I'll get another chance at Exc. B jumpers - well, mom will get a chance to redeem herself) and I'll get to run my first-ever Exc. STD course! About 3/4 of the snow in my backyard is gone, so mom is promising to set up my dogwalk today and maybe we'll finally start practicing again. Although we're supposed to get rain Wed. through Sun. We're just exchanging snow for mud!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky