October CPE Agility

Part two of our weekend was spent at our favorite local trialing spot playing CPE!

We started with Standard, oof.   I hate starting with Standard!

Molly and I laid down one of our finest runs ever as a team.   I kept Vince's words in my head, "You expect her to fail, so she does."   I did my walk through with the mindset of how I would handle those weaves with no "babying", no playing it safe.   Molly responded well.

Perri....had her dirt-zoomies, though it started with some confusion on the Aframe/tunnel discrimination.   She really was trying to work with me and I was not clear in my handling to her.  The run was a little silly but I kept it upbeat.   The first set of weaves I felt that she gave me some effort, but when she ran past the second set I asked her to redo them and she did a nice job.   Then got silly again.

Next was Wildcard - no videos!   It was really a tricky course and the judge set it up to be what Wildcard is truly about: discriminations.   I did the course first with Molly, failed on the first discrimination challenge and then just chose to run like mad for the rest of the course.   There was a tunnel, tandem turn to the weaves and we just rocked it and her weaves were flying.   Oh I so wish I had it on video!   I was so proud of those weaves I could explode, who cares about the NQ!

Perri went second and amazingly qualified - it would be her only Q of the day, and the one that I wanted the most!   Perri also had nice weaves, not as nice as Molly but...super!   This Wildcard Q was our last Q in Level 4.   Perri finished her Level 4 Handler title and all of Level 4 - onto the C-ATCH!

Extra snobby ribbon photo?   You got it.

Jackpot was next, I was feeling good about this with Molly.    She got a little funny with her weaves, but sent nicely to the tunnel.   And then I was behind to support the teeter and she missed it.   Oh well!   I'm not going to feel sad about the weaves - we had a really bang-up weekend with the weaves and my handling looked goofy to me, I'm sure it felt goofy to her.   And "creepy".

Perri was the star of the Jackpot show as far as I'm concerned.  I should not have started with the tunnel, they are not really Perri's favorite thing and she was a bit demotivated by that.   She picked up pace through the opening...and did a really nice job on the weaves in the Gamble!    But she just did not know what on earth I was trying to get her to do after those weaves!   This is the cutest thing ever because suddenly the lightbulb goes off!   A small pounce and she's off!   Perri did a gamble!!!    I was so proud I could burst.  Yes she was over time but she did it.    What I am most proud of is that she kept trying, she didn't melt down, start zooming or shut down...she really kept trying and she figured it out.   Major confidence boost!

We ended our day with Jumpers and Fullhouse.   No videos of either but Molly qualified in both and Perri NQd in both.    But Perri ran very very well!   Just some little mistakes of the "running wide" variety.    A little embarrassing to NQ Fullhouse but it was a simple oversight of missing a "joker" obstacle.

I don't even care.    We had such an incredible weekend, the weather was cool, we had so much fun, the weaves are on the rise....what more can I ask for?  Looking so forward to our next trial and hoping for more forward progress!