Part 4, Wednesday, Dec. 9th

And today, RAE leg #9.

It was weird doing rally in a ballroom inside a convention center. The carpet was covered with plastic “cling wrap”, and in the rings rubber mats were laid out on top of that. Walking on the stuff sounded like popping bubble wrap!

Quigley was stressed when we first arrived (he had his commissures pulled all the way back so that the pink insides were visible), but settled in ok fairly quickly after I got the treats out.

Apparently he didn’t remember how to do a front today, so that’s something we are going to review before going back tomorrow.

If everything goes well, tomorrow should bring us the RAE, with one show to spare. (Or to get started on those next 10 legs for the RAE2?)

The sad news is that when I got to the show I found out that my camera’s display is broken. I spent about $160 already to have it repaired after it gave up the ghost in July, and I’m not going to do that again for a 3-year old camera. It still works with using the viewfinder, but that’s not the same as having it fully functional of course.

So it looks like I’m going to have to spring for a new one. My husband bought a Canon EOS 7D recently, which is very nice, so I’m going to go for something more compact and light.

Part 5, Thursday, Dec. 10th

Woo hoo! With a score of 81 in Excellent (not so great, Quigley did well on the fronts for a change but seemed to have forgotten how to sit in heel position properly and do pivots – it was embarrassing to have to re-do a simple 90 degree pivot left and still not getting it right! ) and 91 in Advanced we completed the RAE title! I’m so proud of my little guy (and a little of myself), 20 rally runs without a single NQ in between, 12 of them since last Friday.

Of all these, our lowest score was a 78, the highest a 97, and the total average 88. Most of our scores are in the mid-80s to mid-90s.

I’m going to continue competing in Rally and the next goal is to work on and improve our precision, now that I have convinced myself that I can actually focus on other things than just breathing and keeping track of the number of exercises and where my dog is at any given moment.

I don’t have a pic to share yet, because I had a professional photographer take one of us with the judge and it will be sent in the mail, but here’s a video of our Advanced run today:  RAE

Tomorrow we go back one more time, getting started on that RAE2!

Part 6, Friday, Dec. 11th

Things went well today, scores of 94 in both runs, which got us a 3rd place in Excellent – our first placement since the trial on November 8th. A nice start on our RAE2! 😀

It was fun, but also exhausting, and I’m glad it’s over. When I drove to Long Beach this morning at 6.30 am it felt like driving in a dream, not in reality. lol

Here’s the result of our 8-day stretch: