Almost there!

Slayte is really starting to come together. I have him entered in T2B in two weeks to see how he does. I am not entering him in Novice yet since he needs some more practice on his dogwalk. I decided to switch from running to a stop about a month ago.

We did some fun runs yesterday just to get him running on different equipment and in a new environment. His first run was a little scatter-brained but the next three were all good. He didn't always stick his dogwalk contact though so we definitely need more practice and proofing. He just startes doing the full dogwalk with the stop last week so can't blame him for that. His running aframe looks really good and doing different teeters doesn't seem to bother him. He doesn't always collect for his weave entrances yet but I worked that last week and I see improvement there.

Exciting times! Hopefully he will do well in T2B and then I can enter him in Novice in August!

Purina IDC

Enzo and I were invited to the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge this year. It is an honor and privelege to be able to perform freestyle in front of that crowd in that arena. Plus a chance to make it on TV!

On Friday was the qualifier, so I entered Slayte. I wasn't expecting to have a realistic chance of him qualifying. He did really well despite being somewhat distracted, but he fought through it and caught really well in the round. I made some nice fancy throws including some skips. Here's his fun round:



I am proud of Slayte because he is already doing things in his routine I won't even attempt with Enzo. That's how good this dog is! He can catch skips, butterflies and other difficult throws that my other dogs never could catch.

On Saturday was the finals and Enzo performed well. He was super fast and wild in his routine. The wildness lead to quite a few drops, which took us out of contention for the win. He ended up in 4th place and I'm happy with how we did. I wish I would have ajusted more for the down-wind throws. They were lower than Enzo wanted so he kept jumping over the disc.



After the freestyle round is the 2 bonus throws. It's about 37 yards from center to center of the squares. It's not easy to hit the bonus throws. I am happy that we finished strong by hitting both bonus throws.