Boom Towne CPE
This past weekend at Boom Towne CPE I went in with two goals (on my birthday weekend!): 1) a Standard Q for Nina (it had been over a year since the last one, admittedly I pulled her a few times for start line stay issues and the like, but still…a YEAR! She is most of the way through her C-ATCH requirements in the games, but still in level 4 Standard!) and 2) for me to run Tish properly, more like Nina and less like a babydog, so Tish could run FAST, stay in the ring and have fun (since she got rewarded for leaving the ring at the NADAC trial, she has wanted to leave at the end to see if there are cookies or playmates available). Well, in the first two runs of the weekend, my awesome dogs fulfilled BOTH my goals, so the rest of the weekend (and it was awesome) was gravy. Jeannine said she thought I was running Nina twice until she saw the Tish-tail! AND TISH FINISHED ALL OF LEVEL 1!!! She finished THREE titles (easy to do in level 1 CPE, but very motivating nonetheless!). She also came right back into the ring when I called her (she did leave, but came right back, that is a HUGE improvement even over the National Specialty). I am also mixing up how I start her – she sometimes starts faster if I carry her in and get a bit of opposition reflex happening by revving her up but not letting her go right away, but she also worked her start line stay very well. I was so proud of my girls. Jen K kindly did some Flip filming again.
Saturday:
Tish Standard (you can see me do my silly tiny-steps mince here and there, instead of running her like she’s Nina, as Jeannine keeps reminding me to do, but I opted to let her run around and explore a bit, and she did come back and work):
Tish Snooker (very nice run, a Q, and she has a send to a tunnel AND called off the off-course tunnel wonderfully!):
Nina Wildcard (this is a classic Nina-Amanda disaster, from knocking the first bar after creeping on her start, to the off course at the second obstacle, and you can hear her shrieking at me the whole time – when we run well, it’s smooth and usually pretty quiet, but when we go off the rails…this is what it looks and sounds like – nice pull to the weaves at the end though!):
Sunday: