Rally Titles

A few weeks ago I took a Friday off from work to take the girls to Queen City Dog Training Club for two AKC Rally trials in one day. In December Dally had earned the first two legs towards her Rally Novice title and Mesa had earned one leg towards her title, so I was hoping we could finish out both titles in one day. And the day was a success!

I entered Dally in only the morning trial because I figured she could pretty much get her title by going 3-for-3. And, she did. But let's just say, I don't think Rally is Dally's thing--she gets bored with it. And I have to keep my eye on her that she stays by my side and doesn't start walking behind me. Because of this, I was trying to do the course by memory and when it came to a point when I knew I had to go to the right to go into the serpentine, I did a 90 degree right turn. WRONG! It was supposed to be a 270 degree left turn. That meant Dally got a -10 points--she would have scored a 96 (good enough to place fourth), but instead she scored an 86. It was still a Q, but not a high score like she deserved. Oh well...it's the title that's most important, and she earned it going 3-for-3. She's now "Frontiers Honkytonkbadonkadonk CGC, AX, AXJ, AXP, AJP, RN"

While Dally plods along the course, Mesa tends to be uber excited to do anything, and since this was one week after her agility trial debut, she thought she could cheer on all the dogs at the obedience trial. And she had the advantage of going after Dally so I had learned my lesson and we did the 270 to the left and ended with a score of 95 and fourth place! She barked at me in excitement only a few times, but she stayed pretty calm and controlled.

With Dally done in the morning, I was able to concentrate solely on Mesa to hopefully finish her title as well. This time, there was not as much barking (I wonder if she figured out we weren't at agility?), but she did try to herd me through a few of the maneuvers on the second course. I was very proud of her, though, because both courses called for a sit and for me to walk around her and she nailed it both times! (In December there were down and walk-arounds and she could not handle me walking around her. Needless to say I really worked on that because I also knew that would help with our start-line-stays for agility.) She scored a 90 on the second course and placed third to finish her title. (I feel the second judge was a little more critical in her judging when comparing the scores of everyone in both courses. Oh well.) Her registered name is now "Mill Creeks Chyna Rust RN"

Now that we're done with all this "obedience nonsense" and back to concentrating on agility. The countdown is on for Mesa's AKC agility debut, and I've sent in her and Dally's entries for a NADAC trial in April in Taylorsville, Ky.