End of January CPE Trial

Very decent trial weekend!

Molly:

Saturday

Wildcard - we did great and got all of our Wildcards discriminations but one of them was the Aframe.  I was behind so she stopped at the apex.  You know what that means.  She jumped off of it so we NQd.  That last pesky Wildcard leg needed for the C-ATCH is starting to get on my nerves...!

Standard Round 1 - A tricky course with tough weave entry and some nasty traps but we got through it all rather nicely (with a nice to-the-bottom Aframe) and then a stressy dogwalk fly off second to last obstacle.  Bummer.

Standard Round 2 - Another tricky one (people were complaining about this judge's courses but I enjoyed them!  It is fun to be challenged! but Molly and I made it through great.  Got lots of opportunity to do distance work and little sends and actually trusting her obstacle commitment while I moved into position to set her next line.  Great!

Sunday

Colors - We didn't "need" this, I only wanted her to run in something before Standard today.  Kicking myself for not entering her in Wildcard, ugh!  But we qualified in this!
Standard - Another Standard Q (it is the map pictured in the photo above.)  I don't really take ribbons too much anymore but I couldn't resist grabbing two Q ribbons for our Standards this weekend.  They mean so much to me!  Was thanking the agility gods for a course without the dog walk!!  We had to do the teeter twice which is fine by me, that is Molly's reliable contact obstacle. 

Perri:
Saturday

Snooker We had a really nice opening and ended with a tunnel.  There were two straight tunnels side by side so I wanted to pull her diagonally across from the exit end of the one and into the entrance end of the other.  I must not have been very clear because Perri did a little pounce and flew into the wrong end - whistled off!
Standard We NQd the same course that Molly NQd, but this was for an Off Course tunnel.  Ah well!  It was Perri's first time trying the 45C courses and she did a really good job on almost all of the trickier handling spots.  Good poodle!

Colors  We qualified in this but I did have to reset her weave entry.  It was a very hard 90 degree entry with a tunnel entrance on the other side that was just a little too tempting.  She did not go into the tunnel but it was enough to cause a bobble.  Otherwise, great!

Sunday 

Colors Perri ran the same Colors course as Molly and also did a good job!  I chose the same "Color" course for her and she did really well with it.

Wildcard We had some Poodle Nonsense in this class!  Everything started out fine but a straight line of four jumps got Perri really fired up and running fast.  She out ran a jump, took the wrong tunnel entrance and then did a pounce at me.  Not a good sign!  I tried to continue running and she spun off in pouncing, growling, judge flirting stressy behavior and shot up the Aframe while I stood there waiting for her to finish.  She returned to me and I carried her out of the ring, still snorting and huffing at me!   It was a real crowd pleaser!

I decided that Perri should go out to the car rather than the crating room.  It was a long weekend after all, trials are noisy, we were staying away from home at my parents' house.  That's a lot of wear and tear on the poodlebrain!

Standard was beautiful though!  She handled the beginning beautifully (an Aframe/tunnel discrim to start with!) and hit her weave entries and was even fast in the poles , especially the first time through them. (The course split them up so you had to do two sets of 6.)  Her first Level 4 Standard Q!

Jackpot was last of the day and it was non traditional and very simple.  Get obstacles pointed 5-3-1 in that order any time during your run.  We did that, twice!  You only got the bonus points for the first time but we ended up earning 67 points when Perri only needed 40.

So now we have a month off of agility trials!  It will be nice, but it is mostly only happening because there are zero CPE trials close enough.  If there were I would be chasing Standard Qs.  Despite the reasons, I am sure the girldogs will appreciate a little break from trialing (other than one rally trial mid February!) and maybe if the snow melts we can enjoy some hiking.