chicago dog

yep.. tractor, his sisters and i are all in chicago! we’ve been here for almost a week actually, but i am just now able to log in to update. we had a verrrrry exciting first weekend here, at an akc trial in manhattan, il. before that, we have a pretty eventful drive here, stayed at a really nice hotel in sterling, co - and a long drive to our friends house tuesday evening.

we stayed with our friends brittany and tony tues-mon because whit and grant were still finishing up the basement, where we are staying. we had an absolute BLAST at britt’s house. we did 1-2 visits PER DAY to the dog park, an outing to a really cool pond, and i even got to take tractor downtown naperville to go shopping at a really cool dog boutique called 2 bostons. it was an absolute perfect way to spend our first week here! tractor and the girls absolutely adored boomer (britt’s dog) and even got to meet up with charlie again! there are tons of new photos from the drive to here.. and also from our stay at britt’s on our phanfare.

but back to tractor and his debut into akc agility! friday was a weird weather day.. raining on and off, kind of chilly.. whit picked us up, and we rode with her to the trial, which was about 45 minutes out from where britt lived. tractor was entered in 3 classes on friday and 3 on saturday. we did standard, FAST and jumpers with weaves both days. his first run on friday was FAST - which.. to be fair, he was the only dog running Novice A, so he wasn’t technically up against anyway, so any class he Q’ed in, he got 1st place. (hey i’m not complaining.. hehe) well, he Q’ed in that class.. and then also went on to Q in standard. he nailed his weaves!! i was beyond excited.. they were both somewhat clean runs.. and i was happy with them considering it was our first akc trial and i am obviously still a very unsure handler.

his third class of the day was jumpers with weaves.. and two things went wrong.. one, it was raining pretty hard right before and drizzling during - and two - he crept forward about a foot or so at the start line, and it completely messed up his footing. he completely mauled the first jump knocking the bar.. but then continued on to have a clean run. we didn’t get the Q in that class on friday.. so he left 2 for 3 that day. not bad!!

saturday the weather was gorgeous.. and our first run of the day was FAST, and he once again Qed! (Wooohooo!!!) second class of the day was standard.. and for whatever reason, he just did NOT get his weaves. we attempted them 5 or 6 times and he just did not get it. his contacts were still good though, so it was okay!

his last class of the day, jumpers with weaves.. we nailed (for us!) and he got a Q! woohoo!! so once again, he was 2 for 3 and ended the weekend with four first place ribbons!

since you need 3 Q’s in each class to get your title, i am really hoping when we go to beloit, wi a week from friday, that he Qs in FAST, because then he would get his novice title! if we somehow can pull off 3 for 3 that day.. then we’ll only be one leg shy of his novice jumpers title and novice standard title! our next akc events aren’t until fall, but it still would be nice to obtain!

tomorrow and wednesday we have lessons with some of whit’s trainers or friends, so it will be very exciting! we also are working his sets of 12 weaves in whit’s yard. thursday we are driving to whit’s family’s farm, so we can work his super vertical out there. i would love to see him even just ATTEMPT it in dubuque, which is not this weekend but next.

that’s what’s going on here! next week, we’ll have 2-3 more lessons, as well as hopefully get him adjusted at whit’s dog chiropractor. things are going really great right now.. we are loving it here.. and i can’t wait to see how things go next weekend! stay tuned!!

(oh, forgot… to update how he did in CA over memorial day… before we left. we ran two classes on saturday in a NADAC trial. he Q’ed in one of his standard runs, but because of weather, we left before he could do jumpers. we have another NADAC trial the end of june, so we’ll get to work on his novice nadac titles then. that’s his only Q he has.. so we’ll have our work cut out for us!)