Day 2 and a 180

Another day of trialing, and Vito sure likes to keep me grounded.

Novice B Obedience:

 

Heel on Leash/Figure 8- 2 pts off
Is 1st heeling pattern ended up looking decent but I just didn't feel that connection.  A bit of a lag again on the about turn, but caught up nicely.  I didn't realize until done that I heeled with my arm at my waist, something I haven't done with either dog for a long time, but I don't think Vito cared.

The figure 8 wasn't bad either, but he seemed even more disconnected.  The 2nd time around he was lagging pretty bad and decided to cut in on my right.  I told him to heel and he did go on my left and proceeded to bite at his butt.  Probably shouldn't have given the extra cue as I think it just cost us more points then it was worth.


Stand for Exam- 0 pts off
I was a bit worried for this one as the nice judge got rid of her cane and hobbled towards the dogs.  A lot of dogs moved their feet to perhaps help her out a little, but Vito was good and remained solid.

Heel Free- 6.5pts off
I had to tap him to get his attention at the start and then Vito immediately lagged and twitched towards his butt.  As soon as he caught up and sat he proceeded to itch.  Vito was then very laggy and just out of it after that.  I gave another cue to heel on the return but it didn't seem to help much.

Recall- .5pt off
No stepping on my foot today :)

Long Sit- NQ
Vito was very distracted going in for the line up.  Right after the judge asked if we were ready she dropped a pencil on the ground.  Vito immediately fixated on it and as it took forever for the judge to hobble over and pick it up she told us to sit our dogs and leave our dogs in basically one breath before the pencil was off the floor.  Vito downed about half way through the stay.  I don't think the pencil drop contributed to it, but it couldn't have helped.

Long Down
Vito held it but was stressed the whole time.  Lots of eye blinking

Overall
His performance wasn't horrible, but I don't know why Vito was so stressed today.  He was laggy and scratchy the first half and then I'm pretty sure he was stressing up on the release from the heel free before the recall.  Our warm up seemed just fine and Vito was happily tugging with me and eating  the cookies.  But as soon as I was at the gate waiting to be invited in he became very distracted by the stewards and I had to fight for his attention.  I'm actually kinda glad we got an NQ today as I don't really want the title under today's performance.  I know it wasn't that bad, but attention and enthusiasm are the two most important things to me when trialing.

Rally Novice B:

Vito also had rally today.  At the start it was seeming that was going to have the same problem as in obedience.  He sniffed at the start sign instead of setting up and immediately started lagging a little bit.  I feel like was able to get him back by talking to him, but if it was the obedience ring we would have been lost.  We lost a point where Vito didn't do his automatic sit and I had to give a verbal.  Overall it wasn't bad and I'm happy with how we finished the course, but again am bummed about the start.  We got a 99 and fastest time for 1st place.