IKC

It all came down to this weekend. We'd been training hard with the weaves and contacts. Working some distance, but mainly distraction and focus. The outcome was favorable - not in the sense of a high Q rate, but as far a funamentals go. Collection is still a work in progress, but it's coming.

IKC was a whole new experience for the both of us. It was busy and at times overwhelming. I knew if wouldn't effect our agility performance, but I wondered about our rally. The agility footing was rather bad, but as the weekend progressed Kay figured out haw to manage it. She began to short stride to turn - not what you'd like to see on a regular basis, but a good adaptation to the environment. The send bonuses proved to be our rough spot. We nailed it friday but couldn't come up with it on sat or sun. Sunday's was a weave to jump send. She nailed to enterance, but couldn't stay in the poles. A novice dog error. That will fade with experience.

Rally was a nonissue. She performed like a champ, coming up with a perfect score on fri and a 98 on sat. It would have been perfect had she not missed a beat on the halt sit. With those scores we move to advanced, having finished our novice title.

We now have to turn our focus back to obedience for the upcoming UKC and St. Hubert's trials. Im still waiting for me St. Hubert's number. Im hoping to have our U-CD after this trial. Then on to working the open exercises hard. The sits and downs out of site are going to be tough. Not the down so much as the sit. She'll be happier to not have to do so much heeling and more active exercises. We'll also need to begin the long training road for utility. This is just for UKC mind you. We'll have to do it all again for AKC. I believe that I can U-OTCH and OTCH this dog.

Our goal are big, but the drive is there. Whatever we get we'll have fun getting for sure. Whatever the destination it's the journey there that makes it all worth while.

Progress

So we've been training hard in prep for IKC. We've been working our contacts like crazy, throwing in some weave poles, and collection. We have to work on tunnel call offs and 180s. She's still jumping wide, a lab thing, and we need to get that under control as we are now jumping out full height. This is the biggest reason she's going wide. We've been working a bunch at 16", now we need to get up to our full height - 20". Our showing at CPE today was good. She's still a novice dog with a lot of working drive. We'll iron out the kinks and she'll be great.

As for obedience we've been our best to keep up. We have a trial coming up in March on our home turf. We went to Windy City dowtown to do some work. Still have some kinks in our fronts and need to solidify our figure 8s. Kay was tired on Friday and didn't get enough of a nap, so that most likely played into it. We need to start working on our Open stays and get those fronts up to par. There are quite a few of them in Open and lots of points to be lost. We'll get it though.

All in all she's not looking bad for only being 2 - birthday is in May. We're looking forward to competing in CDSP - St. Hurbert's this March.