Dolphin and I headed north to Cleveland for an agility trial with our agility besties. This is one of my favorite places to trial.

Our results were pretty good, lots of weird things happened but plenty of good stuff happened also. On Friday we started off badly with a big fail on our send bonus in FAST. Dolphin got his head together and laid down a really nice Double QQ in Standard and Jumpers! It wasn't our fastest runs, but decent speed and GREAT accuracy on some very complicated courses. This is Double QQ #26, number 6 towards MACH 2. Dolphin knocked a bar in Time 2 Beat, so no Q there.

Saturday started off with a nice Q in FAST. However, things went downhill fast in Standard. The course started pretty simply with a tire to the dogwalk. For some reason, Dolphin's right front foot slipped off the side right at the top of the dogwalk, and he fell. Luckily he was able to scramble a bit and landed on his feet instead of his side and his back. I stayed very calm, called him back, and we started over and he went up the dogwalk like nothing happened. He finished the course absolutely beautifully with a ton of speed. The whole time I was having mini heart attacks, worried that he hurt himself. I checked him over thoroughly after the class and he was 100%. I have the damn dogwalk, there is really no need for it to be 4 feet off the ground. Thank God Dolphin wasn't hurt. I would be a complete basket case if he hurt himself.

We finished off the day with a pretty slow jumpers run where he knocked the 2nd bar from lack of effort, but ended really really strong. We had a great Time 2 Beat qualifying run. After the trial and after dinner and a nice long nap in the hotel, we took a walk at CVNP, and Dolphin seemed no worse for wear after the day's events.

Sunday started off with a knocked bar in Time 2 Beat. Dolphin knocked the very first bar, which meant we got to train the rest of the tun. I pushed the envelope on a few things and they worked great, as the rest of the run was perfect. We had a nice FAST Q today, the send was tricky and he surged ahead of me and read the line and got it! Standard had me worried when I saw the map (posted here). There were not two jumps in a straight line anywhere on the course. It had a tricky 4 jump serpentine that wrapped back to a 2 jump serpentine, and then some tricky offset obstacles. I am so proud of Dolphin - he freaking NAILED that hard serpentine! In fact, he read my cues perfectly and ran that course like a champion - it was so amazing....UNTIL he knocked THE LAST BAR!!! Damn. So heartbreaking. The last jump was offset just enough to the teeter that it was a very hard angle for the big dogs to get. Ugh. Though, on watching my video, his A-Frame contact was...eh...a little sketchy (the judge didn't call it). Oh well.

We ended the day with a weird error in Jumpers. For once, he did not knock a bar...woot! However, he pulled off of a jump when I did a rear cross and we got a refusal called. That is so unlike him as he has been realy solid on his rear crosses and his commitment. Of course, after that he finished the second half of the course at top speed, handling the hard bending lines perfectly. Disappointing couple of days after Friday was so good, but that's agility for ya!

It's all irrelevant, because today my best friend and training partner got her MACH on her dog! We raised our two dogs together since they were young baby puppies, training them side by side since 2020. Her journey was my journey, and vice versa. What a GREAT way to end the weekend!

Well, I had thought that today was going to be considerably cooler, so I rented the bird dog club for some training. Nope, wrong, it got really hot and extra humid because of all the standing water (we had a ton of rain yesterday). I brought all 3 girls out to train. I got Bacon out first before it got too hot. We put out 4 pigeons, loose with their wings flipped. She went on point on the first bird, and then did try to jump in but I was able to stop her with the check cord and re-establish her point. After reminding her what 'whoa' meant, I released the bird and she stood beautifully through the flight and the blank shot.

The next three birds were great. It was very hard scenting conditions as there was standing water everywhere, the temperatures were nearing 80 degrees, and there was absolutely ZERO wind. Not a bit of air was moving. Bacon did really well, stopped nicely on point and held her point so that I could walk up, unflip the wings, and flush the bird. She stood through the flush and blank shot every time. Man, it is so nice to have another natural steady dog. Unfortunately, she struggled with the run as she has no stamina because of her heart condition. I am hoping things might improve slightly when we have colder weather...fingers crossed!

After Bacon was finished, I trained Noodle and Pizza with my friend's dogs. Noodle did pretty well, she was nice and steady on her birds and did a really nice retrieve. Her honoring was a bit sticky. Handling her in the field was really difficult today, as she was running pretty big and could not hear me calling her at all. I am on the fence on whether I can ever run her at a test again...it's so hard to direct a dog that is running big in front of you and cannt hear your voice or your whistle.

Pizza was unusually naughty today. She had a big jump forward on her bird, and I had to pick her up and put her back. Retrieve was 'meh'. Then she broke on her honor after her bracemate's bird was shot and tried to steal the retrieve! That was so unexpected from her! She has NEVER done this EVER in her life. It really caught me by surprise, and it was tough calling her off that stolen retrieve. You just never know, I guess. Always something to train!

Dolphin and I did something we haven't done in well over 2 YEARS...we competed in a Scent Work trial! Although we have been training regularly the past couple years, it seemed that every local trial I tried to enter I got waitlisted. FINALLY we got in a trial this weekend. Dolphin did way better than I expected, earning 3 Excellent Container Q's (and a new title!), 2 Excellent Interior Q's, 1 Excellent Buried Q, and 1 Excellent Exterior Q.

On Saturday we had to do our exterior searches outside in a torrential downpour - the skies opened up and we got drenched! It was pretty awful. For the first part of trial 1, Dolphin wandered around in the rain looking unhappy. I don't think he had any idea what he was doing out in the rain. Then he caught a whiff of the odor, indicated, and understood the assignment. Unfortunately we ran out of time right after that. Trial 2 went better, he found 2 hides, but never could find the third one. This search area had a good 1-2 inches of standing water, so it was extra tough. Sunday's exterior went better, though right away when we entered the search area Dolphin thought about peeing on a cement block (I pulled him off just in time before he could do anything). He found the first 2 hides, but never found the 3rd...it ended up being underneath that cement block. He wasn't going NEAR it after I scolded him! The second trial went a lot better - he did a great job searching (and it was HOT) and found all 3 in time.

Dolphin nailed both Excellent Containers on Saturday to finish his title in that element. He got a bonus Q on Sunday. The biggest surprise was that he got a Q in Excellent Interiors both Saturday and Sunday. Ex Interiors is so hard, it has 2 rooms and one room has 1 hide and the other has 2, but you don't know which is which...your dog has to somehow indicate that the room is 'done" and you have to call it correctly before moving on to the next room. Dolphin did awesome, on Sunday he managed to clear both rooms in just 43 seconds, earning him first place! Pretty cool!

All in all it was a good weekend, although the days were extremely long and the waiting around was kind of tortuous. Dolphin was so patient (unlike me), he really is the best dog to compete with.

Oh, and this new title is Dolphin's 61st AKC/WCA title! Damn!