Belleville CKC trial

This past weekend I went to the CKC trials in Belleville. Taari was entered in JWW only as I am still working on retraining her contacts. I brought Spice along as well.

Spice seems to be doing well. Sometimes his limp is barely noticeable though this weekend it almost appeared to my eye that he might have been off in the rear. I will be taking him to his chiropractor on Thursday. I am very interested to hear what she thinks and what she can do for him. The last time Spice saw his chiropractor was few months ago.

The Belleville trial location is very nice and I always look forward to seeing some of the dogs and handlers that I don't usually see. Two members of this year's CKC world team were at the trial. I love to watch Lucie and Nitro and Suzanne and Copine in person. They are such fabulous teams. Nitro's son Scud was also at the trial and it was great to finally see him now that he has grown up and is competing.

I got to see my friend's young dog Brigs get his first Qs. He did really well along with his brother and sister, Casey and Flicka. Cathy and Casey are previous world team members (2004 & 2005).

Taari didn't want to hold her start line stays. Luckily on the first course she knew where to go with out me. I spent the first part of the run trying to catch up to her. There were some very wide turns but we managed to Q with only one refusal.

The second run was much better. I need to improve my timing in some spots but otherwise I was very pleased with the run. It was also a Q. She came a close second to Scud with a time of 24.52 (5.71 yds/s) versus his time of 23.81. The run was not perfect and sometimes the agility gods are on your side and this was one of them. She got her Intermediate JWW title with that run.

On Sunday we ran in Excellent A. I thought that perhaps Taari would be used to the environment and would give me a stay at the start line. That was too hopeful. Nitro and Myda ran before Taari. Both are exciting dogs to watch and perhaps too exciting for Taari. I did not get any sort of a stay on Taari's first run. Taari did not know where to go this time. The run had some great parts though.

On the second course I was determined to get ahead of her and indicate which end of the tunnel to go in to. I was successful in keeping ahead of her but we had a bit of a discussion at the tunnel entrance and got a refusal. I was very pleased with the rest of the run. I wished I would have had that run on tape both to figure out what went wrong at the tunnel and what went right. Her weaves were excellent all weekend.

Both Taari and Spice got to visit lots with people and had a great time.