On his 3rd attempt since fall last year Dax finally passed the AWTA Open class yesterday! It was a lot of fun to see how he shot from the release point (10 feet from the entrance in the Open class) into the tunnel like the cork out of a champagne bottle.
He also made a proper racket underground when he found the rat, digging, whining, barking and chewing on the protective wooden dowels.In AWTA you are allowed to bump up to the next higher class the same day, so we gave the Certificate class a try too. Unlike the previous classes, for this the den has a false exit (no rat), a dead end, and some other twists. Plus the judge had us recall the dogs out of the ground after they worked the rat for one minute (she removed the rat cage for that.) Dax didn't pass because he went over time, but that's fine for his first try. All that counts is that he had so much fun, I barely heard a peep out of him on our 8 hour trip home.
Some pictures:
http://www.mordanna.com/photos/index.ph ... rch?page=2
