AKC Las Vegas!

Well, we just got done competing in our first AKC trial at home! What a nice change of pace - we got to sleep in our own beds and not have to drive 5 hours to compete! The weather was a bit icky Friday and Saturday, but the weekend turned out to be a success!

Friday was chilly and windy, but no rain, so it was the PERFECT day for Tractor to be outdoors... to sniff. Yeah, he had little focus and I was a bit frazzled so none of our runs that day were pretty at all, but somehow managed a Q in FAST and finished his Novice title for that. We didn't connect at all, he was knocking bars (by both my fault and his own), coming off contacts before release.. it was just an icky day, but at least we got that out of our system the first day! ha!

Saturday was pouring rain. We actually got up, got ready and then decided to stay home. Our friend Jess called us around noon and said "Its stopped raining, get out here!" - so we hustled as fast as we could, got to the trial site, I jumped out of the car - they were ready to start running Standard, and of course, this day they chose to go tall to small. T was the first dog up, and luckily the judge let me walk the course real quick. About 60 seconds later, we were on the line ready to go. Talk about frantic.

Well, it actually wasn't that bad! It was still really rainy though, so I was nervous on the contacts - but aside from one knocked bar, he didn't do bad at all! No Q.. but still a lot better focus than the day before.. so it was a step in the right direction!

Next up was JWW - apparently he has to pay more attention to his footing when we are in the rain, because he kept every single bar up! It was a pretty clean run - having to redo the weaves once and my front cross SUCKING- but overall an okay run.

Last of the day was our first ever attempt at any open class, it was Open FAST. The send was a jump, tunnel and back over same jump - and I carefully plotted and planned my strategy, and it paid off! We had a very nice run, coming in first and getting a Q! He was well under course time and over the points needed - it was finally starting to come together! :)

Sunday was by far the best day - the weather was nicer (still cool, but at least it was not raining!) and his focus was there. Aside from him nailing the tire good on takeoff, he had a very nice standard run. Next up was JWW, and he was still clean from knocking bars that day, so I was hopeful. For good reason too.. because he had a nice run again! Kept all of his bars up, went on (like we worked in class recently) and got his weaves on our weaker side.. very good boy!

Last class of the day was Open FAST. This time, the send was an A-frame to a jump, to a double - and he NAILED it - perfectly. I was ESPECIALLY proud of this run, because he was well under course time and came up with 69 points!!! He hit his 12 uprights perfectly and on the first try (seems he's better on 12!) and kept all of his bars up. This was by far my favorite run of the weekend.

All in all, a VERY good weekend for the T-man! He walked away with two new titles (NF and NAJ) and aced through his first two tries at Open FAST. I might be going to Chicago, but if not, the next trial is an AKC one in 2 weeks - no FAST, but he'll have the opportunity to get out of Novice Std - and be in Open across the board.. so we'll see what happens!

Thanks for all the texts and supports (both Whits, Katie and Beck!) - we had a great time!!

(for video, see our Youtube!)