Dog Show Day Again!

Bess and I headed back to Albany this morning for the final day of the four day cluster. I had her entered in rally and conformation. Because I'm actually pretty tired today, I'll be brief (or at least as brief as I'm capable of).;0) Bess qualified in both Excellent and Advanced with scores of 91 and 93 respectively, earning her fourth RAE leg!! For hilarity's sake, I will also mention that I screwed up yet another 270 turn! ARG! Did another 360 only to end up facing the very same sign. Had to redo that station in Excellent, but thankfully didn't screw it up in Advanced!

We literally ran out of the Advanced ring and over to conformation where we ended up having a little bit of time to cool our heels. From there Bess won her class and went on to rake a reserve. Not too shabby. I was really trying to work it in there and show her off on a loose leash. We had Pat Hastings as our judge, who is very well known to be a movement judge. Pretty much the exact type of judge that I need to be showing Bess to. She gave Bess good consideration, but went with another bitch who definitely beat Bess out in the head department.

After that I met up with some of the dane people for an early lunch, and then Bess and I were on our way home.

Next up was an obedience lesson with both dogs. I had been able to reschedule the original lesson for later in the day. Which worked out great because our instructor was also at the show, showing her frenchie puppy in conformation. Heffner was a bit pent up from being ditched two days in a row and had a more difficult time paying attention and even just holding a sit. I think that Bess was a little tired. After two rally runs followed by conformation and preceded by a day on the mountain (which in total had us gone from the house for about twelve hours; like I said, it was a good day!), she's earned the right to be not as on top of her game as I'm used to. I got some more tips on little games to play with the dogs to help work on some of the little things as well as some exercises to work on for the levels beyond novice.

And with that, I'm beat! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!