Well, first run of the weekend, and Mardi did it–she got that last Masters Gamble to earn her ADCH, at the Dog Gone Fun nighttime trial in Tomball. It was a pretty straightforward gamble, but we’ve blown those before, so I was very nervous, but knew it was something she could do. I’m so proud of her–it’s been a long time coming, and I was starting to worry (especially last year when she was injured), that it just wasn’t going to happen. Mardi always made 22″ look easy, but I’m glad she won’t have to jump 5″ over her shoulders anymore. Not sure how much USDAA I’ll continue to do with her, but she will likely keep doing some as long as Trip is, just at 16″. Mardi is my first ADCH dog–Shiner earned the performance version, his APD, but my dogs are just bad heights for USDAA, though Trip isn’t doing too bad. Mardi also got a Performance Speed Jumping (Steeplechase) Q this weekend, and earned a 2nd place in standard. Not too shabby.
Trip did well, though her dogwalk wasn’t stellar. She got 2 Gamble legs, a Steeplechase Q (ended up winning the 16″ class), and a Super Q in Snooker. We definitely needed that–only one more to go, and I do NOT want to need Super Qs for her ADCH. What I REALLY wanted to earn this weekend was a Grand Prix Q for Trip, who always has SOMETHING happen in that class. I was really worried about her dogwalk, since she wasn’t doing them well, and of course she nailed that perfectly. I chickened out on a section that required me to trust her to send to the tunnel and take off to beat her to the end. I was sure I wasn’t going to make it, so I tried to cut behind her, but she shot out too far, and didn’t see the next jump she was supposed to take, getting a refusal. It was heartbeaking, but ALL my fault. BAD handler!
Video will be posted later…
Wow, bad blogger, no updates in a couple of weeks…
So, not too much going on, really. The heat makes it impossible to do much in the way of training, at least for more then 5-10 minutes at a time. We did go to one day of a USDAA trial in College Station, and it was worth the drive. Mardi only was entered in one run, Masters Standard, trying to get one of the two legs she needs for her ADCH. She qualified, ran great, and made 22″ look like a piece of cake. All she needs is one Gamble for her ADCH, and she’ll have two shots this weekend in Tomball. I will keep you updated for sure. 🙂
Trip did good as well. Of course, it didn’t start off very good. When she got in the car to leave my house, everything was fine. 2 hours later, when we arrived in College Station, Trip was 3-legging it. Nothing happened in the car, she rides in a crate! Of course I freaked out–I don’t do well when my own guys are hurting. I wasn’t able to localize pain anywhere, and she seemed to work out of it a bit with walking around, so I figured it was soft tissue. I spent a lot of time loosening her up before her first run, and she looked probably 90-95%, so I decided to go ahead and run her. She won 16″ Masters Standard, and got her MAD title, so she must have been feeling all right. 🙂 Luckily, my favorite puppy masseuse was there, and after that, I was able to have Ken work on her. He found one weird tight spot “near” her shoulder, but really really strange. The rest of the day, she was fine, and she’s shown no signs of doing anything like that since. She spent the day before at home chilling, so I can’t even blame trial soreness for it. Too strange. Anyways, we were again cursed in Grand Prix, so no doing there. I swear, we’re never going to Q in Grand Prix–seriously. Masters Snooker–close, but no cigar. Then in Masters Jumpers, last run, she ran great, again getting a 1st place Q. Who knew–she even QQs in USDAA. 🙂
So, she’s making some progress towards her ADCH, but still needs a little of everything. She’ll be able to make a dent in some of the games this weekend, and maybe, just maybe, break the GP curse! It’s a small trial, so we’ll have fun no matter what. I do miss the days when I was able to do 4 days, multiple games classes, etc etc. This takes much longer to work towards those titles. And shoot, one day she’s going to have to do a DAM team.
One more thing–just got this photo from Great Dane Photography from the AKC Nationals–it is FABULOUS and I just love it!
