Sometimes it’s so hard to figure out Quigley’s attitude and what might influence his performance on a given day. Last weekend we were at a trial with a fair going on on the same grounds, lots of loud noises, food booths, livestock, wet grass, and it didn’t matter.

This weekend it was a big AKC all-breed show, with rally and obedience rings well away from the conformation circus, clean grounds, beautifully groomed grass, plenty of space to set up and exercise – in short, everything you could wish for at a trial.

Yet we did not have a good time. On Saturday, Quigley regressed to the worst sniffing I’ve seen in well over two years, needed a lot of cajoling to do his exercises (with less than stellar outcomes) and did not hold his honor down. We scored a 70 in Excellent and a 72 in Advanced – up to this day our lowest score was a 73, and that was in Excellent A, well before we started on RAE legs in summer 2009.

Despite all this we placed 4th in Excellent and 3rd in Advanced (out of 5 dogs in each class), so at least we gained some ranking points in addition to our 38th RAE leg.

We also NQ’d in Graduate Novice, failing the figure 8 (again) and on the dumbbell recall Quigley sat too far away from me on his front, so I had to stretch to take it from him. Yet another close call. *sigh*

You’d think Sunday couldn’t be much worse, but it was.

Quigley was less sniffy than the previous day, but when we were about halfway through the Excellent course the judge called stop and excused us, claiming that Quigley had peed in the ring. I am a good sport and will accept a judge’s decision without complaint, including an excusal, when it’s deserved – but this was not.

The sign was a Halt – Side Step – Halt and Quigley had popped up right away from his first sit just a couple inches, sort of squatting for a second, so I was moving away from the sign to redo the exercise. When I ran my hand along his underside after we left the ring he was completely dry. I wish I had had the presence of mind to put my hand in the grass where he had supposedly peed to see if it was even really wet before the steward poured Nature’s Miracle over the spot. I sure as heck didn’t *see* anything!

I know what my dog looks like when he pees, and if he does he lets it run for longer than just the second he was squatting in his half-assed sit. It has happened in the ring once or twice (lifting a leg on a ring gate can’t be mistaken for anything else!!!), and those excusals were deserved.

All the other competitors who had been watching were upset as well and said they did not see him pee.

Our Advanced run went better, still some sniffing but at least I didn’t need to cheerlead him through every exercise like the day before. We won that class with a score of 96, picking up 5 more ranking points. Personally I would have expected a lower score due to (in my opinion) poor heeling and lack of teamwork, but hey, I’ll take it. Let’s just say that was the last time I showed under this judge.

Graduate Novice was a lot worse than Saturday, Quigley did an awful figure 8, didn’t drop on his recall, and refused to take his dumbbell, so I had us excused. While he is usually happy to do rally all weekend long, I think I just can’t get more than one shot at Graduate Novice once in a great while. At least Open has two retrieves, which he loves, so it’s motivating.