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Monday, December 20, 2010

Rally-O!

Duncan had another Rally trial this past weekend (the last one of the year!). Thankfully, this one was in Morrisville, so it was nice and close. Duncan did a great job – he scored a 95 Saturday and a 97 Sunday.

I was pleased with Saturday’s run. The points we lost were for position, but that didn’t surprise me. Duncan seemed a little off to me, and I figured that was due to the high noise level (there were soccer games going on in the arena beside the trial). We actually had the same judge that we’d had for our second run at the trial in November, and I knew she liked to take points for bad position. Even with that, its really hard to complain about a 95 for an Advanced run, and taking 4th place against a whole lot of dogs. In fact, Duncan’s score earned him Reserve High in Rally Trial German Shepherd (he was the GSD with the second highest score for the Rally trial).

Sunday’s run was something else altogether. I know we got a higher score, but I swear it felt like we earned something a lot lower. We fought for every bit of that score. The judge admitted it was a hard course, but that wasn’t really our problem. Duncan was just having an exceptionally bad day. He couldn’t seem to focus on me at all, and he kept wandering off mentally (and a bit physically). It was bad enough that someone who met him the day before commented on how different he was, and two ladies who met us at the trial last weekend also said they could tell he was really off. One said that she couldn’t tell anything wrong the day before, but it was really obvious Sunday. I don’t know what it was, but I hope it never happens again. Regardless of how I felt, though, the judge obviously thought we deserved the score. And that 97 earned Duncan another 4th place and High in Rally Trial German Shepherd, which was pretty cool.

Here we are with the judge who awarded the 97, which also gave Duncan his Rally Advanced title.


Duncan got a lot of loot from this trial. He got two green qualifying ribbons, two white 4th place rosettes, two boxes of cookies and two tug ropes (part of the placement award), a small GSD figure for the Reserve award, and a GSD picture frame for the High Score award.


I'm so proud of my boy for all he's accomplished in the last two months.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW...I think Duncan has found his niche. Actually he has several :-) Bruno was off Sunday too with a round of vomiting. Had us really worried last night when he laid down in the garage and won't move for about five minutes. His nose was dry and warm too. He seems back to normal this morning with a wet cold nose. Hope Duncan's back on his game real soon. Mary B.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to Duncan for all he has accomplished......hope he gets to feeling better soon!!!
:)Love, Mom