Ribbon Rocks!!!

This weekend Ribbon made her Open debut.  Obviously based on the title of this post she did quite well for herself.  I am so proud of her I can't even express it.  Here is the rundown of the events of the weekend.
Saturday - Trial One
Ribbon warmed up very nicely.  We were starting with routine number 3, it begins with retrieve on the flat, followed by drop on recall.  I knew things were going to go well as soon as I set up.  Ribbon made full eye contact as if she wanted to know what exercise we were going do.  I showed her the dumbbell.  This exercise went perfectly, Ribbon came in crooked and straightened herself out into a perfect front and followed that up with a perfect finish.  Her drop on recall went really, really well, only losing 1/2 point on a finish.  By the third exercise I realized that we were in the middle of a REALLY nice run.  I kept her up by playing between exercises and not leaning over her while interacting with her.  This tends to push her away from me and I have to learn not to do this.  Her heeling was spectacular and her broad jump was PERFECT!  We only had stays left and that went fine, even though when I left her on sit stay, she started shaking her head so I thought we might be in a bit of trouble.  The end result was a 198.5 and she had to win a four way run-off for first place!! This also gave her a HIT.  The ribbon is bigger than she is!!!

Saturday - Trial Two
It was getting late in the day, we were the second last dog of the day.  I knew Ribbon was tired so decided to use a new motivator.  My friend Susie had some steak, so I used some in my warm up.  I had her playing on her leash and she was really pumped up, then the judge had some questions to answer and a few second delay turned into almost two minutes.  I put Ribbon back in her kennel and when we finally got to go in, I had lost her a little bit.  Once we were in the ring she worked quite nicely.  On the very first exercise, the retrieve on flat, as she was approaching front, she let out a big burp and the dumbbell fell out of her mouth (I blame Susie for this !!!). However, she quickly picked it up and gave me a perfect front.  The rest of the run went okay.  Her heeling was a little loose, but she did give me another perfect broad jump. For whatever reason she ticked the jump on the return.  So we ended up with a 194.

Sunday - Trial Three
The judge had selected routine #5, which begins with retrieve over high jump, followed by drop, the flat retrieve then heeling, then broad jump.  On the high jump we had a crooked front.  All the other exercises went quite well, her heeling was quite good.  The floor was quite slippery and Ribbon slipped on take off for the broad jump and ticked it on the landing.  Many dogs completely wiped out, so I was lucky that it was only a tick, but it did cost us a point.  I was disappointed to find out after the stays that she only got a 196.5.  I thought it should have been higher, but it was her CDX and I was still really happy with my dog.

Sunday - Trial Four
We were going to do routine #2, which is the traditional routine backwards and the judge had set up the ring in the formation of a fan, which is one of my favourite ring set ups.    The rings were running close together, so we did our run within about 10 minutes of our other run.  I took her out for a pee, made sure her feet were dry.  Watched the pattern and then we were in.  I had her do some elevated retrieves, so that her rear legs were warmed up for jumping and in we went.  A perfect broad jump started us off nicely.  Crooked front over the jump, flat retrieve was perfect and then on the drop she didn't sit on the front.  This is really unusual for her, so I may have been leaning over her - that cost us two points and a had a small lag after the left turn on the heeling.  Then we were up for the last set of stays a few minutes later.  I was worried that she was tired and she might lay down, so I played with her and got out a new motivator - the TIM BIT!! She was pretty happy about this.  She was great and ended up with a 196.

I am so proud of how steady Ribbon worked in the ring.  She did show some of her inexperience, but that's okay because she is inexperienced.

Our next venture is our American CD in January and then my plan is to show in Open one weekend a month for 2013.  That should give her lots of experience.  What a great girl - I am so lucky!!