Trial Report!

Alright, I'm finally ready for Gidget's trial report!  Gidget and I participated in a local AKC trial on Saturday only.  We ran in Novice B JWW and Open STD (our first Open run ever!).  It was bright and early in the morning and I am so not a morning person.  We did pretty well anyways.

The JWW course was fun and actually had a tunnel in it!  I knew I had to use some front crosses on this course and was glad I'd been practicing them a lot lately.  I had a few options for placement of the FCs but I think I picked two pretty decent spots, one after the second jump of a pinwheel (this course had 2) and one before the turn to the straight away to the finish.  Watching the video, it looks like I didn't have my opposite hand up as early as I thought I did, but it worked anyways.  This video misses the very beginning of the run, a couple jumps and a rear cross to the weaves, but I'll hopefully have another view soon that catches it all.  We ended with a clean run, 1st place (out of 3), and our novice jumper's title.  Gidget's name is now Ali and AJ's Gidget NA NAJ!

We did not qualify in our Open STD run.  I was unsure of what I should in the tire-jump-A-frame sequence.  My initial instinct was to do a front cross after the tire, and I wish I would have stuck with it.  I saw too many people planning to do the sequence without a cross, I walked it and for some reason thought it was better.  That ended up setting me up to pull Gidget right past the A-frame.  Refusal number 1.  The next issue came with me wanting to try something, not really new, but a little more difficult.  There were 2 jumps turning to the left with a pole right about where a handler might want to be.  So I thought I'd try to layer the pole.  It may have worked, but the first jump faced the exit door which I think distracted Gidget.  She ended up coming around the far side of the second jump.  Refusal number 2.  Other than these 2 oopsies, the run was pretty decent.  I was very excited that Gidget did all 12 weave poles on her first try!  I can learn from my mistakes, work on layering, and get a first open leg in both JWW and STD at our next trial!

Our next trial won't be until the end of April, I can't wait!