We hit the road and made the trip down to Cecillia, KY two weekends ago for an earthdog test. It was kind of a haul back and forth both days but well worth it. Ya see, earthdog tests are hard to come by. There is not a single test in the state of Indiana. The closest ones are two hours away and on top of that, they only have them in the early spring and late fall so my window is rather limited. Anyways, Rhys completed his junior earthdog title in flying colors! The boy loves his rats! Well, maybe it's more that he loves hunting rats, rather than loving the rats themselves, but ya know what I mean. He nailed intro and junior on Saturday. The judges were really complementary of him, as was the AKC rep who called him the "ringer" of the Intro class. He was one of the 2 dogs that qualified in Junior that day. So Sunday we took a stab at Senior. Absolutely no problem there with the increased release distance, the false den or the increased working time. However, when it came time to call him back once they removed the rat, he just wouldn't give up. He kept working right there at the end "maybe if I stay here long enough, those rats will come back". The judges were again very complementary of him again and said that was an easy problem to work through. We'll take another stab at senior again this weekend after we do a little recall work in Intro first! ;) I would really love him to nail it this weekend too.

Riley made some very valid attempts again. No problem getting in the tunnel, just won't stay at the rats. They just don't do anything for her if they aren't moving around. You shake that box a bit and she'll work it but as soon as they stop moving, she gives them death stares again (not a valid form of work according to the AKC but it is what they were originally bred to do). Again, we'll keep pluggin at it with her. I would really love to see her get her junior title. It would make her becoming a versatile excellent dog so much easier! She hunts above ground wonderfully, but just not below. I still swear that if I could combine the two dogs together, we would form a Super Earthdog. . .one that works like crazy, but also one that returns at the slighest of my commands. Course, I wish for a lot of things but life isn't perfect, is it? All and all I was quite pleased with the weekend. Dogs got baths when we got home to get rid of the red mud plastered on them, since the tunnels had an inch of it in the bottoms. Also picked off way too many ticks. . .the place was crawling with them. My skin is crawling right now just thinking about them! Yuck!

Thanks to Barb Teigen, AKC rep, for taking pictures! Here's Riley heading in to one of the tunnels. She didn't catch any of Rhys, basically cause I think he was in the hole so fast, ya never could have caught it on film! ;)