Sunday, May 4, 2008

Dream Fields trial: new title but not much else!

Today's first class was at about 8am and the last one was at about 6pm so it was a bit of a long day!

First was Steeplechase. It was a nice, doable course except that Walter couldn't do the right weave entry on the second pass of the 6-weaves. Oh well. Plus he knocked a bar later on which I think was due to a really badly timed front cross.

Second, Jumpers. We were so not in sync and he got an offcourse as well as a few almost-offcourses. I had led out on him and he doesn't much like that so maybe it was his revenge! (or, more likely maybe I was just doing a really lousy job of handling!)

Snooker went alright, not the smoothest run ever although he stuck his teeter really well each of the three times. Did the teeter twice and a tunnel in the opening; in the closing he remembered how to weave (it was only 6-weaves) so he got his third Masters Snooker Q and therefore his first Masters title: the Special Masters Snooker Dog of Canada title (SMSDC). It will be soooo nice to have the pressure off now for future Snookers! (For any readers not familiar with AAC, all you need are three Masters Qs in each of the main events to get your big ATCH title.)

Walter's first try at Masters Team: The ideal team run, where both partners either go clean or goof up. In this case, we both goofed up. :-) Walter skipped a pole halfway through the 12-weaves and I didn't bother having him redo them because just the fact that he wasn't in Weaveless Walter mode was a good thing. He stuck his teeter and dogwalk very well.

Walter's first try at Masters Standard: Not a great run. It was a very doable course, but again Walter skipped a pole in the middle (and again, I didn't bother to fix it), then he almost got an offcourse at a chute/teeter trap, then he missed the tire. Oh and he did 2o2o on the dogwalk but self-released so we redid it and went into training mode.

All in all he was in a pretty slow mode today, even for the first run of the day, but overall he was a good boy, and I try to remind myself that any injury-free trial is a good trial in my books!

5 comments:

andrea said...

WOOHOO on the masters title

hoping Brody and I join you in that soon!

it's funny how different the dogs are somedays eh?

which dog am I running today?

Muttsandaklutz said...

Thanks! I'm hoping Walter and I join you in achieving a Masters Standard Q sometime but that day could be a longgg ways away :-)

Elf said...

Congratulations on the Masters title. I always particularly like getting my first masters title on a dog; seems like things seem to pick up after that.

-ellen

Muttsandaklutz said...

Thanks, Ellen. I could certainly stand to have things pick up a bit, that's for sure.

andrea said...

awwwww it'll come - Brody and I have great faith :)