Monday Mischief ... Rally Excellent 2nd Leg

Friday Teach went to the Doggy Spa and got beautiful for the show on Saturday.  We got up early Saturday (around 5:30) and loaded up in the car for the 2.5 hour drive south to Gray, TN.  The closer we got the grayer it got ... guess it had to do with the name.  I watched the radar the whole way to see a green/yellow mass hovering over the area.  This was our first outdoor show so the rain added to nerves of the day.

The nerves did show through too.  I was so pleased at the last show because I was so much calmer and it really paid off, but this time the nerves came back and it did show.  The first sign after the start was back 3 steps with dog in position ... we know this sign and I can proudly say Teach does it great, outside the ring without my nerves ... but Saturday it wasn't happening and when I backed up and turned around to come towards me.  Instead of retrying it (because of nerves) I opted to keep going and just take the 10 point deduction.  We were just off the rest of the class.  Teach did everything but was very slow about it all and not focused like I know he can be.  We did have several distractions besides the rain.  There was an open class going on in the ring next to us and it was the first (in a while) that we have had another ring close by ... he looked over there some.  Then as we were coming back towards the gate the tent was set up outside the ring and someone under the tent decided that right when we stopped in front of the gate to preform a halt-90 degrees right-halt sign it would be a good idea to flip the water off the top ... right in front of our face.  Startled me and Teach really lost what little bit of focus he had at that point.  What made this person think that was a good idea?!?! We finished that sign and thankfully only had one sign left after that and completed it for a qualifying score of 88.  Which honestly wasn't bad at all considering how I felt about it and all the distractions.  And we did come out with a first place ribbon ... so go figure!!

We're going to chalk it up for experience.  Maybe next outdoor show will go better.  At least we did get our qualifying score and another leg towards our Rally Excellent title.

Here is a picture of us and the first place ribbon. And one of him checking it out as we left the ring.  You can kind of see the rain in the pictures.

And with that ... mischief managed ...

(We're joining the Monday Mischief Blog Hop hosted by My Brown Newfies, Snoopy's Dog Blog and Alfie's Blog.)