A Leg to Stand On

Well, we didn't do it in style, but Ian earned his first CDX leg today. I think the judge must have been in a good mood. :-)

Heeling was about like I expected: a little wide, a lag here and there. On the recall, I went temporarily retarded and gave a hand signal to drop instead of a voice command. Ian looked at me oddly and continued on for a few steps, but he did eventually drop, just in time to lose points but not NQ altogether.

Then, it's about the retrieves... He did go out and get the dumbbell and brought it back, so he completed the principle portion of the exercise. However, when he came back he stopped a little far out in front of me, dropped into a crouch, and mouthed the dumbbell until the judge told me to take it. I didn't move my feet, but I think I had to dislocate a couple of vertebrae and a shoulder to do so. Same thing for the high jump, only he went kind of to the side this time and played with the dumbbell. He also didn't really do a front on the broad jump, just circled around me and lost focus. But again, he performed the principle portion of the exercise, so we squeaked by.

Bottom line: A 174.5, which is about 4.5 points more than I thought we had. In all honesty, I wouldn't have been at all upset if the judge had NQ'd us, as this was NOT a good performance. We'll be practicing the retrieve tomorrow before ring time!!

As for Elli: there were three bitches of the five entered who showed up today for conformation. Elli got neither WB nor Reserve, so do the math. About what I expected. She did a nice down and back, and wasn't too bad on the table. Her trip around the ring wasn't very impressive, though, what with the sniffing and so forth.

I had said that if I went home from the weekend with 1 green qualifying ribbon I'd be happy, so if we get anything else this weekend, it'll be gravy as far as I'm concerned.

:-D