ARCH Perri and Excellent Leg #1

Perri wrapped up her late winter-early spring Rally-o "tour" last weekend. We attended the Poodle Obedience Training Club of Great NY at their annual spring Obedience and Rally-o trial. I will admit to having little to no interest in AKC Rally with Perri, but our friend was debuting in Rally Novice. I wanted to go along to support her, and competing with both of our poodles at a specialty had the makings of a fun day.

I entered Perri in Excellent and unfortunately she was more stressed than usual in the ring. Her hypervigilance was very intense and we did not have any of the teamwork that we are capable of. Perri pulled off an 82 and earned her first Rally Excellent leg though. We did attempt for our second leg at the Afternoon trial but we lost 10 points on the Moving Back-up, I paused on a Down-Stay-Walk Around (oops) and I did the Figure 8 WCRL style. That's 30 points off right there, folks. Ouch! I forgot about those brutal AKC 10-point hits if you do any element of the sign incorrectly. Our friend Zoe did well, earning her first two Rally Novice legs. It was still a great day of poodlin'! Perri made it very clear she would like a break from Rally-o, and that was the plan anyway!

Backing up, Perri spent two weekends in March earning the final two double Q legs needed for her ARCH (All Rally Champion) title in World Cynosport Rally. We went to a new-to-Perri trial location for leg #4 and when I saw how good-for-Perri her confidence and attitude was, I entered the next trial there (two weekends ago.) Perri earned her last QQ with a very nice Level 1 leg and a decent Level 2 leg with some mild floor aversion due to a drool mop up spot. Perri has become extremely obsessive about keeping an eye on the floor when we do rally obedience and her engagement suffers a lot for it. In any case, ARCH Poodle!