dobe specialty (cherry blossom day one)

soooo close. soooo very close. i wish one of those ribbons was from utility!!! every class but utility folks, every class.

good day. i feel like crap still. got the show site set everyone up and tried not to die. was back in the hotel by 2 pm and slept until 7:30 (WHOA????since i dont do middle of the day sleeping!) and just grabbed some soup and a frosty for my throat and now im going to take more nyquil and going back to bed - passed out dinner and bully sticks to the dogs and we're done.

so yes, everyone did well. well, its a relative term. the show site is HARD. dobe obedience is on first while everyone is still loading and unloading, and its right by all the doors. excuses, but its hard nonetheless. locationwise, at least.

rah went first. heeling was rough, he was all over the place. i dont think he brought his head up ONCE to look at me, knocked me all over the place. i need to verbally tell him what we are going to be doing more. but he did them!!! lovely.

articles - on the second pivot to the article pile he hit the chair so he didn't sit. but he did both articles - though don thought it had the wrong article???? so he followed him in.

gloves. gloves gloves gloves. argh. we had glove 2. i for some reason pivoted really poorly and rah took glove three. argh.

moving stand was fine.

go outs - first one was lovely. second one he pulled up so i tried to fix it, but it didnt go as planned :) it would have been qualifying but he already NQ'd...

so, just one glove. ONE GLOVE!!!! but he did utility, under a man!!!! and he almost q'd - it was much nicer. he ddnt know for sure where to mark for go outs, but i backed him out and remarked it and it was better. im very pleased. slightly concerned about the pulling up short on the second one, but i can fix that tomorrow (hopefully if its not raining i can set up a ring outside - its raining today so i didnt want to do it).

open B was next - to freak me out, they did open b and a stays together, so i had to find someone to handle rah. rah was a lunatic in open B too. again, the heeling. the heeling. his other exercises weren't bad, except that he raced don on a rethrow to the db because he didnt tell me "exercise finished". enthusiastic as always. going to the right on the fig8 isnt going to work because he wasnt sure what was going on. we lost 8 pts on heeling!!!!!!!!! but he q'd - sue ann took him in for stays. no placement because he sucked.

mercury in open a - outside the ring he cried during warmup but i didnt want to be too into what hurt, he was walking fine. didnt stress the sits tho. and i didnt get a SINGLE SIT on the heeling. in fact, he was so freaked by don, i had to give a second heel command. 15 points on off leash. BUT HE DID EVERY EXERCISE. and he held his sit stay to be the loooone qualifier in open A and even though he had a shit score, its still a second leg!!!!! i knew i had to take him in for stays instead of rah, since he ahd no chance of doing stays for someone else... rah was very confused tho.

berlin for novice. i have to jazz her up more. she wasnt paying attention to me for on leash and we lost 8 points for on leash heeling. ON LEASH! how far can she get? she had swivel head and stared everywhere but me. fig8 was better, sfe fine, and off leash she finally kicked in! she did fine for stays and got her first CD leg and af irst place as well !!!! and she also got first in beginner novice to finish her BN....

so, all in all a very good day. 4/5 and three first places. IM FEELING A UTILITY Q coming this weekend, I JUST KNOW IT.