Mid-Hudson Kennel Club - October 13-14, 2012

Statistically this was not a good weekend for us. My reliable and dependable retrievers went 0 for 8 runs this weekend - BUT - Teller had four solid runs thwarted by (in roughly this order) a jammed shoulder in the weaves, a wrong course tunnel and a silly refusal..Kipling went to a new trial venue and while he was a bit out-classed by the course and the environment (OMG! The judge just put up his hand, should I check him out?) he got better and better with each run.

Let's be realistic and honest here - My goal for Teller is to finish MACH3 this fall; my goal for Kipling is to get him exposure, start and finish the course together and get him some super-positive mileage in-between. This is true for both dogs, but especially for the baby dog: its much more important for him to run the course happily than it is for him to run cleanly.

Positives:
Great contacts from Teller all weekend - pausing on his yellows and even getting a nice turn tunnel off a dogwalk (even though there was a chute straight ahead of him)!

Kippie also did a great job with his contacts - but also his weaves - nailing all four of his entries with nice snappy weaves.

We live to play another day - all around. I felt like I had a lot of dog from Teller this weekend - he was moving along and was quite responsive. Sunday's JWW (if not for the WC tunnel) would have been a 14 point JWW run for us - more than we're usually picking up in 20" JWW.

Teller - Saturday Ex JWW

Kipling - Saturday Open JWW

Kipling - Saturday Open Standard

Teller - Sunday Ex Standard

Kipling - Sunday Open Standard

Teller - Sunday Ex JWW

Kipling - Sunday Open JWW