Dog's First Title!

[Ray Esboldt]

Brittany,

We'll see you there. I have Pepper (people rarely know each other's names, but they always remember the dog names). We'll be running started as well. Should be a fun test. Benton Country grounds are a pretty cool place for a test.

[Lemr]

Met you guys up at marsh and meadows this past summer. it was nice to see your dog run. I did not get to prairie lakes did you run and how did you do? hope to see you at land of lakes hunt test on sept. 7-8. I will be there working as the hunt secretary and if you are at game fair stop by the dog club tent and say hi I will be in the land of lakes hrc booth

[Lemr]

Met you guys up at marsh and meadows this past summer. it was nice to see your dog run. I did not get to prairie lakes did you run and how did you do? hope to see you at land of lakes hunt test on sept. 7-8. I will be there working as the hunt secretary and if you are at game fair stop by the dog club tent and say hi I will be in the land of lakes hrc booth

[Brittany]

Ray -- I remember shaking your hand back in June. I'll keep an eye out for ya this weekend. If you recognize me first, don't hesitate to say "hi"!

Rich -- we got our 3rd and 4th Started passes up at Prairie Lakes a few weekends ago. I really don't think River's ready to run in Seasoned just yet, but we'll see how things go in training over the next couple of weeks. I like the option with HRC where you can do the same-day signup. If we have some sort of miracle breakthrough with our blind work, you just might see us there!

[DrJill]

Congragulations Brittany !! A dog can't heel better than that. Textbook.

[Brittany]

Well, not so much the first title anymore...

This past Friday -- Jan 3rd, 2014 -- marked the last day of our first year competing in obedience trials and hunt tests. We put quite the exclamation point on that year with our showing at the Land O' Lakes Kennel Club show at the RiverCentre. This time around we were entered in the "big dog" classes, competing for Combined High in Rally and working to finish off our Companion Dog title in the formal obedience ring.

River did it all! Tied for first place in all three classes entered -- winning the tiebreaker for the two Rally classes, scoring High Combined in AdvB & ExB, and ending up with 2nd in the Novice A class after a (surprise = nerve-wracking!) run-off. Overall, she beat out 26 dogs, and earned her highest scores for the year in each of the classes entered! Was a great way to cap-off a great year!

In all, we've finished (the equivalent of) 6 titles, qualified for the Advanced Class at the 2014 AKC Rally National Championship, and have a first leg toward the Rally Advanced-Excellent title.

AKC Rally Novice (1/6/13)

AKC Rally Advanced (4/7/13)

UKC/HRC Started (7/14/13)

NAHRA Started (8/18/13)

AKC Rally Excellent (12/1/13)

AKC Companion Dog (1/3/14)

It's been a fun year! We likely won't be quite as ambitious with the title quest this year, as we have other (expensive) priorities to deal with *cough*wedding*cough* and we did struggle with some burnout/over-training issues towards the end of the summer. Not sure how much farther we'll be able to go in the Hunt Test world -- since she's a mixed-breed, she's not allowed to earn any hunt test titles anyway -- but we'll still play the game! I figure if I can get her up to solid, consistent Senior-level work, I'll be satisfied. Her real place to shine seems to be in the rally/obedience ring, so as long as we're having fun with it, we'll keep it going! Hoping to someday have a National Championship label on her name!

Will keep you all posted...

[LABS4ME]

Fantastic!!!

Congrats to the team!

Good Luck in all future endeavors!

Ken