At the Corgi Specialty!!!

Road trip!  Lance and I, along with cheerleaders Gracie and Grandma, headed off to the Lakeshore Corgi specialty show.  The first time Lance and I have ever had an overnight for a trial!  Unlike the Toller, Lance and Gracie know just how to sleep on long car rides.

The trip was about 6.5hrs including a quick stop for lunch.  We came down Thursday night so that Lance could have a quick 5 minutes of ring time.  Since we have never shown at a hotel or on carpet, I wasn't sure how he would do.  Lance did pretty well and was only a little distracted by all the delicious banquet smells all over the carpet.  He was a bit weirded out by a section of the carpet in the lobby section and I could never figure out if it was the specific pattern of carpet in that area, a weird smell, or the way the sun light was reflecting the pattern.  Thankfully the ring area didn't have most of those issues for him.

Friday held two obedience trials back to back.  So Lance went in the ring 4 times plus stay.  Montage Video!: http://youtu.be/iAfhBEn8Myc

Utility #1- NQ

First run and Lance was a bit distracted for the first bit of heeling.  Did a pretty good job of staying in position, but not with the attitude and focus I've trained.  Became very happy on the signals though!  AWESOME fronts and finishes and no real issues with anything until we got to directed jumping.  Then on the first send out Lance stopped just past the halfway point and looked at the bar jump next to him. Without me saying anything he then quickly headed back to the go out spot.  I breathed a sigh of relief and then signaled the jump.  Lance however spied Grandma video taping as I gave the signal.  He moved, but started coming towards me.  Just over halfway he realized his mistake and without me doing anything he immediately headed back to the correct jump and took it!  The opposite direction.  Then started heading back to me but caught Grandma's eye again and kinda froze.  Wow.  I never could have imagined failing direct jumping that way!!!  Very creative Mr. Corgi, very creative.  At least you're thinking and realizing your mistakes!

Open #1- Q 197, High in Trial!, Obedience Master title!

Time for Open and Lance reverted back to being a little uncertain for the heeling.  This time it only lasted halfway and he was perfect by the time the figure 8 rolled around.  Fronts and finishes continued to rock!

Going into stays we were first and we also did them in the middle of the large ring.  I'm not sure if Lance was less stressed due to either of those facts, or maybe because there were only corgis in the ring, but Lance gave me fabulous happy eye contact on our way in the ring and during our set up.  He was still a bit stressed as I left, but much much better than most groups.  And he held it!  First place, high in trial!  We were short a dog for OTCH points, so the win and points don't count.  But he got a cool plaque and huge ribbon :)  This was also more than enough score points to complete his Obedience Master title!

Utility #2- Q 193, 1st place

Awesome heeling!  Fronts and finishes starting to suffer a tiny bit more, but otherwise doing really well.  Great glove pivot and eye contact.  Article #1 I'm not sure what happened.  He gave me a heart attack as he ran right past the pile and started sniffing about 5 feet away.  Sniffing lasted a good 5 seconds before he came back to pile and immediately snatched the correct one.  Article #2 was great.  We qualified with a generous score of 193.  And another first place!  I was sad, but happy for me, that the second place corgi also had a stopping of the search during article #1 so we evened out on that for points lost.  This first place counted for points and we got 2 little points.

Open #2- Q 195, 2nd place, High Combined, UDX leg #7

Still awesome heeling!  Fronts and finishes diminishing even more.  Not awful, but lost at least 1/2pt on each exercise due to a front or finish.  I could tell he was getting a bit tired as his retrieves and drop on recall didn't have the bunny butt running he usually does.  Stays remained the same in hapiness level and he held them again!  We're now back up to tie our record of 6 long sits in a row.  So that's a total of 12 out of 13 held recently.  Hope!

So, so proud of the Corgi!  I can't believe how consistent he is becoming in obedience and how much he continues to enjoy it.  I can actually believe that next spring we should finish our UDX and just maybe we can some day finish an OTCH.  Currently we sit at 2 of 3 first places and 17 points.  Way more than I ever thought we would achieve.  

Link to the crazy go out fiasco in trial 1: http://youtu.be/R7axRAeAtwI