Trial today

Only took Raven to the trial today. Cypher is having a break fo a weekend or two. I had entered Raven in a couple of runs and decided to play it by ear. She was certainly well enough today so we went - it was an afternoon trial again. Her Masters Agility run confirmed how much better she was feeling - she broke her start!!! Wasn't a full on blast past me or anything but enough to creep up to the first bar and then knock it of course...so we finished the course anyway I could tell she was enjoying herself. We did a ripper run in Open Agility, again I can't quite help feeling incredibly lucky every time I run her now. I have to smile as we get to have another go. She ran perfectly and with more of her old speed which led to me being too late with the out command on the distance challenge. We copped a refusal but that was our only fault. I was more than happy and grateful for the glimpse of the old Raven. Her lymph nodes (I felt them today) are now more the size of the stone in a small peach which is great. Her appetite still good (fresh cooked bacon for the trial today) and things are looking normal. She's harrassing her back left toes lately, I think the itchiness is creeping back in, keeping a close eye on it. Back in to Murdoch tomorrow for treatment #3.
I had fun running my other two borrowed dogs today - Dexter, another Rhonabwy BC, in Excellent Jumping for a clear round and first place, his owner Janice was wrapt and then Rumour, the Sheltie, she was a bit put out by the minimal warm up but we finished off clear for not a bad run.
We now have a break, long weekend next weekend which is trial-less and then the next one is on June 10th Sunday. That's the weekend Raven gets a week off from treatment on Monday (meaning the long weekend she gets the most toxic drug in her treatment) . I'm now looking ahead to that treatment hoping fervently that she, in her true Raven toughness, experiences no toxicity to this one. We can but hope.

Raven has a win :-)

Tonight was Perth Training’s Agility and Jumping Trial. We definitely fared a bit better this Saturday than last! Raven was a star again and took 1st place in Masters Agility. It wasn’t smooth sailing in a number of places but her speed compensated for that. We had a brilliant run in Open Jumping apart from the 3rd bar from the end coming down. In Open Agility she kept all bars up I just managed to handle her into a refusal of a jump – my ugly early rear cross move came out. She also managed to miss the distance challenge (easier than last weeks but needing more handling than most people had given it). Masters Jumping was our first run of the night and she was handling like a mack truck on the opening going very wide all over the shop on all the turns, she eventually had a bar down so we stopped, replaced bar and withdrew.
Cypher was like a yoyo tonight – he did a lovely Masters Jumping run first up and was very smooth and surprisingly he ended up with a 4th place (he never feels like he is moving as fast as he could!). I think he is very efficient sometimes, deceptively so.
Next up was Open Agility and I handled a very poor 270 move that failed to execute at all, causing him to treat it like a pull through instead of going round the outside. However he then pulled his same stunt from last week on the weaves! Found the gap just fine on a difficult angle but then just ran straight through the gap past all the poles, now I watched this back on video (yay for Tim the videographer tonight) and there is no reason for what he did. It is quite bizarre. I have to think on this some more and see what to do. He nailed both sets of weaves in Masters Agility and Open Jumping. The entries were easier though so perhaps it is simply the unusual entry angle and I haven’t proofed them enough lately. I shall work on it. In Masters Agility I think he thought – “oh this is the same as the last course I just did” (And the opening did look exactly the same as Open had been nested with Masters) and went straight in the wrong end of the tunnel as Obstacle #2. I took him back and started again, recalling him straight to me then turning him into the tunnel. He then just about tripped me up as he cut me off to do the wrong end of the next tunnel we came across *sigh*. That was quite frustrating I must admit. Nailed the rest of the course quite nicely. His last run was Open Jumping and apart from one wide turn he was extremely responsive and running well. He ended up in 7th place on this one.
I ran Rumour on this Open Jumping course and she ran like a cracker! Unfortunately she just curved in a bit early before going out to a jump and got a refusal but other than that it went very smoothly and rapidly…she was fast tonight. The only other run I had was with the young red and white BC Dexter – I ran him in Excellent Jumping and again it was a lovely smooth run and we came in clear for a 3rd place which his owner Janice was very happy about! Looks like I am handling him at next weekend for the State Titles too so that will be fun.
So no luck on the ADM title front yet for Cypher, still sitting on 2 legs to go. I’m hoping he’s saving it up for the two trials then! Raven is running pretty well right now, I think the swimming has helped her jumping and as long as I can get my directions out clearly enough and early enough (but not too early) we should be right!