Well he finally did it! ;)
Rhys is now officially Dawn's Stir 'N Up Trouble RN! He gets to put some letters behind his name now. I'm pretty darn proud of him. . .he earned his first title the day after he turned 9 months old. Though it may have not always been pretty, as he is still very much a puppy in the ring, he successfully completed all three legs. . .and in fact, really 5 legs but that's another story for another day, of which I'd rather not discuss cause it's mostly my fault. He was a little distracted in the ring on Saturday and stopped to check out the judge twice but that's alright. When he was paying attention to me, his heeling was really really nice. It's those moments when his brain finds something better to do than focus on me that he drifts a little but that's basically what every team battles against, right?
Riley earned her 5th RAE leg that day too. Boy, the judge was generous when she had us pass excellent. I should have known better to do what I did but what's past is past. We had gotten up early and drove down 2 1/2 hours that morning and then Riley was the second dog to go in so we didnt' have any real warm up time and she was super pumped up that morning. I knew that when she wasn't gonna sit at the start line, I was in for it. She wouldn't stay on any of her stays. Boy, we made it through. . .barely, with a 77. Advanced was like an entirely different dog. She was wonderful and I was very very pleased with her attention. She got a 96 that go around. We did some practice stays between the two classes and she knew she couldn't get away with it a second time so they were much better. Not only that, her morning jitters were out of her by then. I read an article recently from westie obedience guru Lynn Reagan-Hull about stays so I'm gonna have to try her advice. I couldn't believe that she has broken her honor like 3 times now (not this day-but the last three times) so we're gonna have to work on it. I think she might be stressing a little but not sure over what. It sucks cause excellent always has to go first these days. . .I like excellent first in agility to get it out of the way but not in rally. I think it would build her confidence (and mine too) to do advanced first and then tackle the stays in excellent. Oh well. . .we make do with what we get.
Either way, a successful day and we got to see Cheri and Hadley again (Rhys' cousin), who's grown like a pound and an inch since we saw her two weeks ago. Also got to pick up some raw food at this cool store right next to the dog place. Visit Metzger's Country Store if you happen to be in the Simpsonville, KY area. ;)