Flying Poodles

Okay, so it’s not THAT easy…

Dancer has been doing so well with Jumpers course that I really thought we’d have a chance to Q this weekend. It was a four-day trial, one Jumpers run each day (and a FAST run). So four chances in Excellent Jumpers.

Those Excellent courses are tough! Instead of one or two nasty little bits–as in Open–there’s challenge after challenge.

Exhibit A: the Jumpers course from Monday. In green, we have the ideal course over the twenty obstacles. In orange, we have Dancer’s course over the obstacles.

Every single one of those errors were my fault. Which is probably why she nipped me on the butt as we were leaving the ring: “MOM! You made me screw up! Run FASTER next time! MUCH faster! And tell me SOONER what you want!”

I’m working on it, really I am. I do my sprint training every week. But she surprises every single trial by being so much faster and so much more enthusiastic at trials. I mean, that curve from jump 3 to the backside of the triple… It’s about 22 feet–and she took ONE stride between the two obstacles. It would have helped if I hadn’t stood there, awed by her athleticism, but really–she’s just SO fast!

On the good side: she got her weaves every single run. By the end of the weekend, she was doing them pretty fast, too. And some of those entries were tough!

In Novice FAST (preferred), she was awesome. She did three FAST runs, and got the distance part all three times–but missed her A-frame contact (part of the send) on Saturday, so she didn’t Q. She got two Q’s, one of them first place, the other second place. That’s her Novice FAST Preferred title, so she is now:

Alchmys Magic Star Dancer OJP NFP as far as AKC titles go. (She has some NADAC titles too.)

I am going to keep her in Preferred (20″ jump height) until the end of this year, then go to 24″ in 2009 for AKC trials. By then I hope to have trained her teeter as well.