I had the pleasure of watching Preacher and a couple of his daughters run at Perry. He is an incredible dog. To be able to turn so well at such speed is awesome to behold! It is very clear that he understands his job and he goes off and does it letting his handler do hers!

My take home message from Perry was to absolutely positively have independent obstacle performance. The level of competition is so high that you absolutely have to be able to trust your dog to do what they have been trained to do so that you can get to where you need to be. Another skill that is becoming more necessary to to be able to gear your dog up and down quickly to handle the trickly parts then send off on the straightaways!

I was very pleased with Pippen. WE started off with TEam Jumpers. He was moving well with good speed then I pulled him off the correct obstacle (my brain fart) - no E just a refusal. After my call off he wasn't about to let me send him off over the finish jump so we had another refusal but again no E. I only have part of that run on tape.

Next was team snooker. Tom Kula had a design where the 7 was 2 sets of 6 weave poles parallel to and on either side of the teeter (6) . The task was to take the weaves in the correct order in the opening. The best score in the class was a 49 (out of a possible 51). I walked a 2 (6) 1 (5 ) plan. In the 16", 3 6's and the complete closing would have won the class. I had not walked that plan but decided since Pip has a good teeter that I should try. He caught me flat footed after the first teeter and took the #4 tunnel for the whistle. Looking at the tape I was clearly hesitating to long and we had been working tunnel sends so the good boy did what he thought I wanted!

Team Gamblers was a time challenge (1,3,5,7 no 7). At the horn you were to take only jumps for 4pts each adn make it over the finish jump before the second horn or risk losing all the gamble points. If at the first horn you were on / in an obstacle you could complete it for the points. If you were approaching something like the A frame then you had to call off your dog or get a whistle. We managed a respectable 58 with 4 gamble jumps.

Standard was a heartbreaker. PIppen ran beautifully but would not send over the last jump incurring a refusal but as we completed it no E.

The second day was steeplechase GP round1 and team relay. Pippen ran the last leg and took the double set at 22 for an off course! ALl in all I was amazed that we got a team Q!!!

Shadow got her first run of the weekend at 5:30 Sat night. She was higher than a kite despite the 98 degree temps and several swims in the lake. She had a bye to round 2 but qualified with a teeter fly off. Pippens GP was also a qualify and as he didn't have a bye to the second round I was grateful. In steeplechase I left them both to do the a frame which they did beautifully but we had trouble with the weaves (as did a great many dogs). Moments of brillance but no second run!

Shadow had some very tough competition with 3 former AKC world team dogs in her height class. Her time was competitave but her DW was called so no bye to the semi's for her.

Pippen was great! we used burst of speed from the weaves to the tunnel send Hew ran beautifully but he missed his DW contact. I didn't catch his time but it was in the 37s'. Even with the 5 faults he got his bye to the semifinals.

I was very happy that Pippen held it together over a very gruelling weekend............ Looking forward to running team at the NE regionals and to another fun GP and stteplechase(we are in for a draw! should be a blast!)

Compared to last year, the courses were much more technically demanding. A lot of very good dogs were crashing and burning ................. I will post videos later! ....elizabeth