You win some, you lose some...

...and we did both on the same day!

June 23 & 24 found us once again in Westfield, Mass for a UKC rally trial.  This would be our first time out competing for Rally Championship points.  Talk about a busy weekend!  Tripp competed in 8 trials in just 2 days... hot summer days outdoors, no less, with a thick coat to boot.
We've had a good track record of straight Qs in UKC rally all the way up through level 3.  This weekend broke that record and gave us our first NQs.  However, it also gave us a total of 50 championship points and another High in Trial.  Plus 6 Qs out of 8 trials still isn't a bad average. ;-)
To earn a UKC Rally Obedience Champion title, one must compete in both level 2 & 3 to earn a total of 100 points.  Required qualifying score is much higher than a regular Q (91 vs. 70), and the number of points you earn is dependent upon score - the higher your score, the more points you earn.  There is also a separate Excellent title, which is not dependent upon score, but requires combined regular Qs in both levels at the same trial.  We only earned 2 legs towards that one this weekend.  URX requires 10 legs.

Saturday, Trial 1: 
Level 2 we earned a 98 and 1st place. 
Level 3 we earned another 98 and 2nd place. 
Trial 2: 
Level 2, yet another 98 and 2nd place. 
Level 3 we did well on course, but unfortunately Tripp melted during the Sit-Stay Honor exercise.  It had been a long day in the heat and the twerp thought lying down in the grass was a much better idea.  That gave us our first NQ.
Sunday, Trial 1:
Level 2 the 98's continue!  It was like a running gag at this point. LOL  Also took 3rd place with that one. 
Level 3 was a decent run overall, but Tripp moved his feet during a stand-stay as I walked around him, and unfortunately I did not catch it or hear the judge call "fault" and we continued on.  Incorrectly performed exercise = NQ.  If I'd heard her warning I could've retried that exercise for a 10 point deduction.  We wouldn't have made any CH points, but at least it would've been a Q and counted towards URX.  Funny enough, I think Barb (our judge) was more bummed about that mistake than we were.
Trial 2:
Level 2, take a wild guess.. yep, another 98!  And another 2nd place.
Level 3, I was worried at first... the morning Honor was a down-stay, so I fully expected the afternoon to be a sit.  To my relief, however, Barb VERY generously made this one a down as well, so all the hot and tired dogs got off "easy" at the end of this long weekend.  Tripp still needed extra encouragement to keep his energy up on course, which wasn't the easiest thing as I was hot and tired too, and not feeling the greatest.  But we made it through with a fairly nice performance (you know I'm a perfectionist) and this time earned a perfect score of 100 and took High in Trial.  (What's that, our 4th HIT? Wow!)  So it was a great finish to the weekend.  We gathered Tripp's massive haul of ribbons and prizes and set up for a photo shoot to commemorate our win and other placements.  While the official photographer did his thing, my mom caught a nice shot of us from a different angle.

The video turned out quite long, as it includes all 8 of our trials.  Probably just as well we didn't film the Honor exercise too!