November 29, 2014 - Purina Farms
I finally got myself to enter an AKC trial.
Of course due to school, I can only ever enter on Saturdays and maybe a Sunday ever here and there, so we just competed on one day.
Strike was measured before the trial by both judges, both measured him at 20.25", which I think is a perfect size. ;-)
He was entered at 20" in NoviceB for both standard and JWW (we don't do T2B or FAST).
So we ran JWW first. I was a little nervous as Strike isn't very comfortable on the turf. I set him up and took a deep breath, all I had to do was keep up (haha)! He seemed so calm on the startline so I figured maybe he was tired, but as soon as I released him, that proved to not be the case. He took off, I ran for my life and we even bumped into eachother at one point (my fault!!), but we kept it together and finished the course clean! I was ecstatic that he kept his footing on one of his least favorite surfaces. We partied and played outside before going in to check on results and when we did, I was over the moon. Strike received first placd AND ran at over 7 YPS his first run ever in AKC, even with bumping into me and being on turf!! We partied even harder after that!
Video: http://youtu.be/T81SstRDZGo
Next was standard (like 3 or 4 hours later of course). Now a lot of my friends know that Strike has a phenomenal running dogwalk, but I planned in advance that I didn't want to use it in his first couple trials (I, personally, just wasn't ready for it in a trial situation). The course seemed flowy and we learned the broad jump the day before (oops). The first obstacle was a tunnel so that was awesome and a nice booster. He his the aframe contact by a toenail, but got it nonetheless and will be working on that more in the near future. Awesome teeter, fast ground speed and a STOP on the dogwalk to a 90° turn to the table. The next sequence I was a little on the fence about. Chute, out to a tunnel. So I figured well, take a chance and try to send to the tunnel while trying to get ahead or running all the way to the tunnel entrance and not keeping up later. So I took the send chance and sure enough I pulled him back to me too soon. Luckily though Novice can have a refusal and I managed to get him back into the correct side. The rest of the run flew by! He also took first place in standard!
Video: http://youtu.be/-Omu_AyC-VI
Overall it was really fun! He exceeded any expectation I could have ever had (I don't set expectations (: ).
I'm so so proud of him, I couldn't ask for a better dog! I'm so happy to get the opportunity to even trial since we hardly ever to get to train because I'm in college and only see him on weekends.
Can't wait for many more! :)
