Raven and Cyphers October Weekend

Well it’s been a couple of good weekends actually, especially for the Cypher. As I wrote last time he gained his ADX last weekend (21/10), and he had his first venture into Masters Agility yesterday. He did very well with only one knocked bar more than likely due to a poorly timed rear cross movement on my part. For his first go on the ‘big dogs’ course as we call it he did very well. He has now also gained three Masters Jumping legs on the trot finishing in the top 7 each time when there were well over 15 qualifiers. He has a total of 4 JDM legs now, three more to go. We are still chasing that one elusive leg of ADO, we’ve been unlucky a couple of times now and had mostly refusal faults called. He has been much more focused this weekend and I am putting it down to doing a lot of recall work on training sequences during the week where he is called off obstacles and has to come to me to play tug (which he loves so not really training for him!) and also doing short sequences where I work on tightening him up on his lines which have a tendency to run wide. I will need to refresh his contacts again this week – for the first time ever he did a fairly cautious dog walk today and I don’t want that to recur.

Raven eased back into trialling this weekend, and did some really good work, her handler letting her down in Masters Jumping causing a refusal and she dropped a bar in Masters Agility both days. She has run clear for 2nd places in both Open Agility and Open Jumping and those runs felt fantastic. She is once again undefeated in Snooker in WA, completing her 2nd leg of Excellent Snooker with a first place after again managing to do the ‘Suicide 7’ as they call it. She has pulled up well from her toe injury it would seem though I am still keeping a close eye on it as there is more than likely a related weakness there now. Below is a gorgeous photo Tim took today of her and Spryte after the trial. I shall entitle this photo “The Raven and her Protégé”