AKC's 1st Junior Nationals!!

This event was sooo much fun! I really enjoyed getting to show with Scooter and Trixie with no pressure to get legs or earn a title or anything - it really was just for fun :D On Friday both Scooter and Trixie did agility and both of them were awesome! I LOVED Scooter's standard run! She ran the whole way and was so excited she was trying to weave two poles at a time! (so we got 2 R's :P) She even did the teeter too! I was so happy with how she ran right up to the top before she stopped, an improvement on last weekend when she stopped at the top of the up contact. Trixie's standard run was great too, but then I took my eye off of her at the double jump so she ran around it, UGH if there's any goal I have for 2012 its for me to keep my eye on Trixie when I run her - it cost us 1st place overall. She had a refusal, then back jumped the double - I led her right over it, and there went third...but I didn't care.

Next was JWW, both of them were clean! Trixie had a GREAT run, I got a little lost after the serpentine but Trixie was a good girl and didn't stray too far from me, we got 2nd place in the run by like 2 seconds - probably because of my confusion... ahhh but that's life. But my friend Kathleen beat us with her awesome sheltie so that was fine - as long as someone awesome beat us :) Scooter had a nice run too - a little slow at some parts but generally much faster than her usual JWW run - she was still about 15 seconds slower than 4th place but I was still happy with a clean run. Scooter didn't place overall but Trixie got 4th overall, about 10 seconds faster than fifth place. I loved getting to hang out with other juniors from our area and getting to see them all in one place, not like 1 or two per trial.

Our runs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbgIwTZGOLk

Saturday was obedience... Only Scooter showed because back in August when I entered I wasn't sure if Trixie was going to be ready. Our first run of the morning was Novice obedience, Scooter was great EXCEPT she didn't do ANY sits at halts during the heal on or off lead... what a stinker... but other than than she was great we only lost like 15 points... but some other teams had trouble too so we were in 4th place after the first round. Then we had group stays. One of the dogs got up immediately when the stays had started, but Scooter was good and she stayed where she was. At the end of the group sit though one dog went into a down and the judge didn't take off ANY points at all...really now?! that's like the whole challenge of a group sit! I wasn't a real fan of that judge, not just for that but other things too... like in this show we also get scored on things like sportsmanship and the appearance of the dog. One girl came out of the ring and said "That sucked!" basically screaming, she was like 9-10 years old and how many points did she lose for sportsmanship? none, yep go figure :/ The next round, Beginner Novice, was much better and Scooter sat every time and got a 244/250 getting second place in the class, the dog that beat her got a perfect 250 - I was annoyed I didn't get to see it. So we ended with 3rd place by 4 or so points - the dog that got second was the pap who laid down during the sit, but that's life  - we'll beat them next year!

In any event I was super happy with how unstressed Scooter was, I may even throw her in some spring AKC agility trials and try to finish our Open titles :) Oh and more good news! Trixie got her 12" height card for agility, not sure what to do about running preferred or not though...I want to go to 2013 nationals in Tulsa and she has her OJP and 2 OAP legs and she's been doing really great at 12" but now that she has a 12" card she'd have to jump 8" - and you can't do regular after april. I'm not sure whether she could qualify if I started back in Novice and worked my way up... At this point I'm thinking that I'm going to do regular with her until April and then reevaluate, who knows how far she'll get - building confidence at a lower level couldn't hurt.

Some pictures :D

 - Someone's tired :)

 - the loot :D - the obedience ribbon is bigger than Scooter

Ohh I almost forgot about goals...

For Trixie: - generally be awesome :D she's so young that I really want her to have a good time at busy events like this - hopefully they'll be more of them in her future!! - Misson accomplished! she had a great time


- Place in at least one of her runs I do want to have fun - but placing is definitely a goal! - Yes! got 2nd in JWW and 4th overall

- Be clean in both of her runs - So close! I just need to keep my eye on her...

- make it on the airplane: yeah she stretches airplane regulations so i really don't want any problems getting her on the plane and I definitely don't want her to freak out on the plane... -Trixie was great! Not even a little whining :)

Ultimate Goal:

- Place overall: I'm competitive... :) - yes!



For Scooter:

Agility:

- Run! - Dear Scooter, if you only run in two more agility runs of your career please let these be the two - Sincerely you're nervous handler - DONE!

- Do the darn teeter!! you aren't afraid of it Scooter - I bought a stupid $500 seesaw from MAD agility so you no longer have an excuse - DONE!

- Run clean in jumpers - that means not going over SCT... mission impossible? I hope not - DONE!

Ultimate Goal:

- really just running, I don't care if you place as long as you aren't afraid and you run! - DONE!


Obedience:

- get qualifying scores in both of her runs - DONE!

- place in novice senior - they're are only 6 dogs, I think you can do it Scooter! ( I managed to singlehandedly prevent two scores of 195.5 from happening) I know its in there somewhere - GOT 3rd!

- good heeling, that includes a good fast pace - I'll even try not to make it too fast for your poor 6" legs :) - better in Beginner Novice - but that's because I totally missed the briefing where the judge went over the heeling pattern...

- be happy! (notice a trend?) - haha a little too happy :D