Since school ended for me last Wednesday I thought I'd give the three day trial thing a chance and see how the dogs (and I!) held up through the weekend. Honestly it felt like a never ending trial - for me they all do if they're more than 1 day though because that's what we usually do. I think we handled it pretty well, if anything Trixie sped up as the weekend went along but she still wasn't that fast - definitely a combination of conservative and kinda lousy handling on my part, I just really wanted some Q's because we haven't had that many recently. I know, I know. Trialing isn't about the Q's but I want to be in Ex B by July when the invitational qualifying period starts, so that means just 1 more JWW Q and we're golden!
Friday was a bust - Trixie had a GREAT jumpers run but then she decided to poop right before the last jump. Needless to say she got A LOT of walks before any other run of the weekend... In standard she LEAPED over the dog walk contact and took an off course later on. Oh well.
Saturday was pretty hot, hotter than Friday but not nearly as hot as Sunday. Scooter ran first in jumpers and started biting at flies in the weave poles...at least they were real flies. We got an R for that but she ran the entire course so I didn't even care. Trixie ran jumpers clean, pretty slow, but clean - our first AXJ leg!! After like 4 hours of waiting in the heat Scoot ran in standard - the first half was slow and then she sped up and Q'ed for her AX! If she had been in Ex B she would have even gotten 4th! (3 Q'ed) Trixie also Q'ed with a pretty decent run despite the heat.
Sunday's heat was brutal. it was like 89 degrees but felt like 95 at least. Trixie actually ran faster, probably because fewer of my crosses were incredibly late. She Q'ed in JWW with a nice run (4.4YPS - not bad) and later Q'ed in Standard (3.6YPS) for her AX title!
We leave on Thursday for CPE nationals - I know it's just CPE but I'm still pretty excited!
