Oh my god! She got a Q!

Oh my lord! Look what happened tonight! Kizzy got her very first Q!! Who knew it was possible??  :o)

We're playing NADAC here in La Crosse this weekend and I wasn't sure what to expect following that horrible day of UKI. Thankfully Kizzy was much more into the game today and we didn't have the problems of a couple of weeks ago.

I'm going into this weekend with a new plan. I have a history of getting her all revved up before her runs, playing tug and all that other crazy jazz. This isn't a dog that needs revving up. The more hyper she gets, the spacier she gets in the ring. I don't care about fast at this point, I care about building up good habits and learning to run together in the ring. So we are going zen. No playing before the runs. Just doing sits and downs for treats and giving me lots of eye contact. I'm also trying to be very quiet in the ring, limiting my "happy squeaking" as much as possible (and the clapping, let us not forget the clapping...).

The Novice Regular courses at the trial today seriously could not have been better for us. They were very simplistic and didn't have any discriminations to worry about. Just a loop up, back, up and back again. Gosh, I hope for similar courses all weekend...

Kizzy did just super awesome on the first run, sticking with me the whole time. Even the end was really great! I sat down on my knees and played around with her while the leash person brought the leash over and was able to easily scoop her up. Hooray! I couldn't believe it! Did she just Q? Yes!  :o)

The second run was also very nice, right up until the end. The weaves were the second-to-last obstacle on the course and I guess these must stress Kizzy out a bit (gee, you think so, after she never did them at UKI?). She DID stop when I called her, which is a very good thing. When she did the play bow, though, I knew we were screwed and that she'd leave on me, which is what she did. Oh well. She ran right out to the people outside the ring this time, though, so at least there were no worries about her taking off out the door. We did go down to the basement to have some happy weaves when we got home, just to fill the bank back up before tomorrow.

I don't have video for the other dogs, but everyone had a super night! Kaiser & Luke both got their Chances Q's tonight! That means that Kaiser is just one away from NATCH 2 and has two more shots at it this weekend (this was Luke's 50th Elite Chances Q -- he is now three away from NATCH 5). Kaiser was "technically" perfect. Our NQ was because I walked the course wrong and left out a tunnel.... Oops. Nobody bothered to tell me this and thankfully I watched a couple of runs while waiting with Luke (Kaiser was first up). I was like, um, why are they all taking the off course tunnel seemingly on purpose? Then I noticed there were two number cones at that tunnel. Hmm. Sigh. What a moron. Thankfully I did it correctly on Luke's turn so the big guy got a Q.

Secret's run was awesome! I really pushed her and she came through. Her dog walk was lovely and I did a blind cross on the landing side of the a-frame and she ran with a nice deep hit. She ended up with the second-fastest time in the class, just a fraction behind the lead dog. I love that she's having fun! She has two runs each of the next two days. I'll be interested to see how she is on Sunday with three days of agility, even with the limited runs.

That's all for now! I'm very curious to see how the crazy one does tomorrow.... My only real concern is that her day ended with running out of the ring. Guess we'll see!