Blue Ribbon CDSP Obedience Trial

July 31, 2011.  Today we had a CDSP Obedience trial hosted by Blue Ribbon Dog Sports Coaching, owned by our trainer, Linda Sperco.  We have been trying to earn Brooke's Open title and I had Sawyer entered in Novice C, to try to earn Qs towards his championship title and to get more ring practice for upcoming AKC obedience trials.  Earlier in the week I was hopeful that we would be successful today.  But of course nerves took over Sunday morning on the drive to the trial site.

First up was Brooke's Open run. 
We actually had a decent heeling pattern.

The Running Broad Jump went well.  Look, Brooke jumping.

Her Drop on Recall was beautiful.  There was no anticipation, no staying out in the down position, and the front was in close.

Retrieve on the Flat was fine.  She did exactly what I needed her to do. We're almost done, only 2 more exercises to go.

Then came the Retrieve over the High Jump.  I think all the pressure is on the handler for a decent throw...not my strength.  It seemed to start out pretty straight but then took a wild bounce all the way over to the right side of the ring.  I assumed my challenge would be the return after Brooke picked up the dumbbell and I was prepared to give her the 'jump' command to remind her once she picked up the dumbbell.  To my surprise, Brooke bypassed the jump altogether and went straight for the dumbbell.
Thank you for your entry, please try again.

Look mom, I did the 'Go Out Turn and Sit'. 
Gee thanks Brooke, but we already NQ'd.

Bobbie was the honor steward so couldn't begin taking pictures of Sawyer's run until the Figure 8.  His Figure 8 was ok, a bit lagging at parts but overall good.

Sawyer is usually steady on the Stand for Exam and he didn't disappoint today.

Then we had the recall over the bar jump.  No problem, we've done this a million times...or so I thought.  Good thing we can't see the shocked look on my face as Sawyer ran around the jump to come to front.  I have no idea why he did this but we just NQ'd.

I didn't get anyone to photograph Brooke's 2nd run but just read above because it was pretty much the same.  Actually she messed up the Retrieve on the Flat.  She left to go get the dumbbell and then turned around and came back.  She seemed confused, but I'm not sure why since we've done this a million times.  My throw for the Retrieve over the High Jump was much better this time, of course.  It was nice and straight but it didn't matter at this point because we already NQ'd!

Sawyer had awesome heeling for his second run. 

The Stand for Exam was fine.

Recall over the Bar Jump...repeat from trail 1 (UGH!)  Guess we have something new to work.

I thought I would salvage my day by putting in for some of the raffle prizes.  Did I win the free entry to another trial which we obviously needed??...NO!  I won the free 8x10 photo from the photographer that was taking the winning/qualifying shots that day...too bad we didn't fall in that category.  I had her take some shots of Sawyer anyway because if you can't qualify, you might as well look good.

I was at least able to get some nice photos of my friends and their dogs, who all qualified.

Mary with her veteran dog Indy, earned another Open championship leg. He did his Retrieve over the High Jump.

Indy did an awesome Go Out!  It was perfectly straight.

I only had time to catch the Recall exercise for Mary and Casey's Novice C run but it's a nice jumping shot.

Bobbie had two nice runs with Emmy in Novice. 

Emmy had great attention.

I got great shots of Emmy doing her Recall over the Bar Jump as well.