We are back in the game, folks!  :-)  Today Tripp and I competed in CDSP and, woohoo, finished his Utility title!

I woke up at an ungodly hour and left just as dawn was breaking to make it for our early ring time 2 hours south into MA at SureFire Dogs.  But it was worth it...

Our one AKC trial of the year.  Our one chance to knock off that last Open leg.  We braved yesterday's Labor Day weekend traffic to do it, and risked a very late ring time in an afternoon show.  (Last time we did that, we ended up in the ring at 10pm!)  Yeah sure, no worries...  ;-)

Actually, traffic turned out fairly decent along the routes I took, and our ring time ended up being around 5 pm, so not bad. Though I hit several snags throughout the day, overall it went pretty well.  Even better once we were done.  Because... we finally got it!!

Man, that took far longer than it should have.  But between infrequent entries, being out of practice, and just some plain old bad luck, I guess it could have gone worse.  Now that we have our heads more in the game again, we were definitely due to finish up that straggler PCDX. 

It wasn't all pretty; Tripp lost his focus a few times and strayed way out of position.  But there were some really lovely spots in his performance as well.  I wouldn't call it anything special, except for the fact that we won and got that damn title. LOL  I'm probably nitpicking.  Maybe if I'd gotten video I'd have seen how well he really did (most of the time).  Either way, the most important thing is that we had fun. 

Oh yes, we did indeed win too.  First place with a 192!  Not sure how we managed that, but I'll take it!  LOL  In AKC no less... I certainly can not complain.  Made finishing that much sweeter.

And yes, I think we are in fact finished.  I don't have an overwhelming desire to chase down any more AKC titles with Tripp.  So now, once we finish his UKC Utility title, we will likely focus purely on CDSP Utility & possibly Obedience Championship.  I think that's enough at this point.

I did hope to try out AKC's Versatility class, which sounds like fun.  Unfortunately I was not allowed to transfer to that class for today's trial.  (I entered two days, just in case he NQed yesterday.)  A little bummed about that, but we still got we we came for.  That's all that matters.  And as much as I hate to throw away an entry fee, I decided to scratch on day two.  I didn't feel it was worth repeating a needless Open run, or moving to a class I didn't want to enter.  Better to end on a high note.  So today we just relaxed at home.  Well, isn't that what Labor Day is supposed to be anyway?