Oh Yeah, You Blend

Judge Candy Nettles designed some wicked courses this weekend! Super fun to run but not very high Q rates. Zhora was a rock star, missing a double Q by one bar each day. Nina was a wild thing (she is getting faster as she gets older!), ran very well but I managed to cause an NQ two of four times, and she took credit for the other two. Always fun with my dogs no matter what our Q rate is! And Nina’s jumpers run today, in a time of 27.27, was the fastest time of ALL jump heights aside from 20″, pretty darned impressive!

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Q and 12 points):

Zhora Saturday Standard (so close! That particular bar came down a lot):

Nina Saturday Standard:

Zhora Sunday Jumpers (that bar ALSO came down a lot!):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (so fast! Occasionally I try and see if we can get a start line stay or even a PAUSE….nope!):

Zhora Sunday Standard (Q and 19 points, I was VERY conservative!):

Nina Sunday Standard (my fault, mishandled the teeter, LOOK AT THAT DOGWALK!):

We headed down to Erie for just one day, as it turns out, because of pretty dire weather warnings. Glad we went! Tish came out of semi-retirement for a birthday run and did MUCH better than expected. Zhora was one wrong tunnel entrance from a beautiful standard Q, and Nina got a standard Q. Judge Michele Fletcher’s courses were deceptively trappy and very fast.

Nina Saturday Jumpers (NQ, but look at the distance she let me take in the weaves!):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (need to work those tunnel discriminations! Love the sass and that she let me peel off a bit in the weaves, training mode!):

Nina Saturday Standard (Q, first place and 33 points, you can see me whispering to her at the start as I always do that I love her and that she needs to please be careful on the bloody dogwalk!):

Tish Saturday Standard (not a Q, obviously, but she ran SO MUCH BETTER than I expected! And no ring stress):

Zhora Saturday Standard (not a Q, nice run though):

Well the first trial of 2016 is in the books. Judge Janet Budzynski set some really tricky courses with low Q rates. They were really fun to run but certainly not “vanilla”! Nina broke her longish NQ streak in STYLE with double Q #12 on Friday right out of the gate. At 8 1/2 she is running faster than ever. I am posting her Standard NQ from Saturday (in which I gave her the walk of shame for an egregious teeter bail), because she was in complete rabies mode and still was accurate (other than skidding off the table because who needs brakes?). This run ended up costing us a Q in today’s Standard run, in which I overhandled the table and made her spin in front of it for a refusal call. Zhora had a nice jumpers Q yesterday on a tricky course where the only way to Q seemed to be to jam a bunch of front crosses in (not how I normally run my dogs), so it was ugly, but a Q. And today she qualified on a tricky standard course for a SECOND PLACE! Running against some of the top 12″ dogs in the country here, even a placement is a big deal in 12″, but she has never taken a second place before, and she actually beat some of the dogs who usually beat her, so that was awesome. I couldn’t be happier with how my girls are running just now, although Zhora and I need to come to an agreement about her start line stay, since she seems to think it’s merely a suggestion…

Zhora Friday Standard (NQ but a nice run):

Nina Friday Standard (part one of QQ #12, first place and 29 points):

Zhora Friday Jumpers (NQ):

Nina Friday Jumpers (part two pf QQ #12, first place and 15 points):

Zhora Saturday Jumpers (Q and 8 points):

Nina Saturday Standard (holy CRAP she is running fast, skidding off the table because I was so far behind):

Zhora Saturday Standard (HEARTBREAKER, wrong end of the tunnel, the LAST OBSTACLE, costing us a double Q):

Nina Sunday Jumpers (really nice run):

Nina Sunday Standard (stupid handler trick at the table, what a gorgeous run):

Zhora Sunday Standard (Q, SECOND PLACE! And 19 points):

Bow Wow Video sent my “official” videos last week. They look great! My favorite part of the videos is I can see how much fun we’re all having, the dogs and I are loving every minute (except in Nina’s standard run where she knocked like four bars in a row, and even THAT was funny, even though I made some handling errors that I wish I hadn’t with both dogs):

Friday Nina Time 2 Beat:

Friday Zhora Time 2 Beat (Q and 7 points):

Saturday Nina Round 1 Jumpers:

Saturday Zhora Round 1 Jumpers (Q):

Saturday Nina Round 2 Standard:

Saturday Zhora Round 2 Standard (Q):

Sunday Nina Round 3 Hybrid:

Sunday Zhora Round 3 Hybrid:

Sunday Nina Round 4 Jumpers:

Sunday Zhora Round 4 Jumpers (Q):