Giddiness, and Grand Prix decisions

I am just giddy with happiness after this trial weekend :)

First up, Panic.
We had our ups and downs - biggest down is our DW :( She is missing almost every single down contact. She has a gorgeous stop in class, but will not stop at trials. I have GOT to start marking this but for whatever reason can NOT ever remember. Or, I allow good running DWs and don't want to "mess up" our standard run or whatever class it is. Well I've got to GET OVER that and mark her not stopping so we can hopefully get a nice behavior and soon!

But other than that she had a nice weekend. She Q'd in Standard to finish her Standard Agility Champion title, two times in jumpers to finish her Jumpers Champion Silver title, and also Qd in Relay w/Sonic, and Steeplechase, finishing 2nd in both rounds. We had some entertaining snooker rounds, including her jumping over tunnels! Unfortunately I don't have that on video because I accidentally deleted Saturday's runs off of the camera.

Dexter - Only 1 Q, but a GREAT weekend for him! He was fast and happy every single run and that is really thrilling for me to see :) On the start lines, I hold him on the ground saying "are you ready?" and a few runs he almost broke out of my hands he was so eager to run!! The weave pole stress still is there, but I am not forcing anything and know he will get over it. He did Q in Starters Relay with litter sister Calypso. They are too cute together.

Spry - Oh my little Spry-belle :) After the 8/1 trial where she ran out of the ring every time, I thought I might be nuts for keeping her entered (in every class except GP) at this trial... but it paid off!!! I think getting to work outside at another location and the CPE trial in between really helped us out. She still visited some but only one time really left the ring. Every single run she improved. She still had SO much fun and maintained excellent start line stays, weave poles, and contacts. Sunday we got through jumpers with NO off courses! Overtime due to me realigning her at a few jumps, but beautiful run!! Standard we also did everything :) We ran relay w/Dave & Mocha and it was actually gorgeous!! We did not Q because Mocha had one bar, and Spry had one off course... unfortunately, after the baton exchange, she skipped the first jump and went into the chute. She came back to me, but had seriously messed up the fabric. I put her in a sit and ring crew came running to fix it, but it took a lot of time. She then ran her half perfectly :) But w/10 faults and a lot of extra time we did not Q. Oh well!

THEN, we ran snooker, and she Q'd!!!! She stayed with me and just did so well. I am SO proud of my baby girl, and can not wait to see how she matures. I know, who knows what will happen, but I think she has potential so be a very competitive girlie :) Totally different than Panic, which I look forward to. It will be a lot of fun to encounter new handling challenges!

Also, I have made a few decisions this weekend.

1) I will be stopping my attempts to run GP at nationals this year. We have been trying all year to get 2 Qs and have only gotten one, so really - even if I eked one out @ regionals, is it worth it just to go and miss my DW in round 1?? Probably not. I will run in Steeple and Team at the regional and at nationals and have fun and not stress out over GP.

2) Just running Panic @ regionals. Too many people for Spry to run off and visit, and with all the progress we've made in a short time I'd hate to backslide. With so much activity, I doubt Dexter would run that well. And now I can just focus on Panic. She will really enjoy that.

3) Dexter has been having a lot of fun running agility recently, at class, when I train him by ourselves, and at trials. However his fun doesn't have much to do with doing every obstacle on the course :) As much as I love him having fun, I'd rather him have FREE fun :) So, for now, Dexter will mostly be doing agility on a non-trial basis. I think it will help in the long run, he does WPs fine at practice, so we'll forget the stress of them at trials hopefully! He also just turned 2 and is an intact male, so I think some maturity time is not a bad idea!

Ok, videos posted soon!