With Bari along for company, Quigley and I went to an obedience and rally trial at a very large all-breed show today. It was fun to see all those different dogs, but I definitely prefer the smaller events for competing. The weather was sunny and beautiful, even though the ocean breeze made me really cold - it was only around 66 degrees and I had no sweater or jacket with me.

Obedience was first, but between the regular routine and the long sit and down I had to go in the rally ring (missed the walk-through, too) and just didn't have it together enough. Quigley did well in rally and performed all the exercises, but I obviously made a handler error that NQ'ed us and didn't even get a chance to look at the score sheet since by the time my group sit/down was over, they had packed up already and left. Compared to that, I'd actually prefer to have 2 hours downtime between competitions, like last time!

Obedience went a lot better, but we had a really strict judge - our score of 175 1/2 actually got us a third place out of 12 dogs. I got a big deduction because out of habit I gave a voice and hand signal for the finish after the recall, which basically counts as a second command.

Our figure 8 was nice today though, usually Quigley bumps me at least once and does better on the second go-around than the first, but I guess our recent repetitions at class did help.

I'm very happy with today's results, but we will now take a break from AKC obedience for a while and focus on rally, since I want to take advantage of being able to compete in Novice and Advanced A instead of B, which is only possible before the CD is completed.

Bari got some really nice shots, which I'll post in the photo forum.

Congratulations, it sounds like a really fun event. This is where I really feel the gas crunch. In the past I would have thought nothing of going down for the day to check out the show, but with gas prices the way they are using up a tank for no specific purpose isn't as doable.

Congratulations on the great showing. Lucky you with the weather cooperating. I wouldn't need a sweater for weather in the 60's!

The freeways were totally empty due to the gas mess. The people showing all weekend just gassed up their mobile yaughts and stayed parked on the grounds.

A few other neat dogs we saw were: German Pinscher (smaller than a Dobbie), Border Terrier, Otterhounds, Wolfhounds, IGs, Greater Swiss Mountain dog, Berners, Newfs, Great Pyrs, tons of great dogs.

We also went to see a couple of confirmation shows - the Cocker Spaniels, swoon, and the Dachies. Sabine found herself a sweet wirehaired momma, thank god she left her 5 month old puppies home - I know one of them would have gone missing