I talked a friend into videoing my runs this weekend in exchange for videoing his dogs in return -- so I managed to get 11 out of 12 of Luke's runs caught on video this weekend!
http://www.youtube.com/user/SarMoniet
Saturday we only Q'd in jumpers & hoopers. Both were very nice runs because I managed to stay out of his way. All of the NQ's in the other classes were completely handler error.
Yesterday was one of the best days we've had for a long time! The day started out with jumpers -- we had a great, speedy run going until I completely flubbed a front cross by getting too close to the jump, causing Luke to bring a bar down on his way through the turn. That gave us 5 faults and 2nd place (NQ). I was very happy with his time on this run (almost 5 seconds under), though, as we're usually pretty tight in elite jumpers.
Chances was next and once again the NQ was my fault. I have to start to trust my dog with the distance work and stop stressing and babysitting. Luke got the *hard* parts of the course and then I messed it up by over-talking during the send, causing him to be confused and cut in early.
I finally got my act together and we Q'd in the final four classes and even got 1st place in a couple of them. Both of the regular runs were great, flowing courses that were well suited to our handling style. We got 1st place in touch-n-go -- this is a class that we used to have about a 5% Q rate thanks to Luke's sporadic performance of the dog walk. We have done hard-core retraining on this since buying my own dog walk this fall and I am beyond proud to say that Luke didn't get called on a single contact performance this weekend! The final class of the day was tunnelers and this is almost always a guaranteed Q for Luke, but he still ran an excellent course and came in 3rd in a very competitive class.
Our final tally was 6 for 12 --- which is GREAT considering that the majority of our year consisted of many 2/12, 3/12 or even 1/12 trials. Having equipment at home has made a huge difference for us and I feel very lucky to have been able to have done so. Our next trial is in Minneapolis on the 27 & 28 and I'm hoping for another good weekend! We should be able to get our first Outstanding Elite title there (in tunnelers).