Low to high, Wine Circuit 2010

Well, after getting 4 to 8 inches of rain on Thursday, Sept. 30 in the Ithaca NY area, Friday Oct. 1st  at Romulus NY greeted us with clearer skies but incredibly muddy and soggy field conditions for the dog show and trials.  The start of the show was delayed by one hour in an effort to lay down straw and in a hope that the ground would dry out (NOPE!) so rally didn't get underway until 9:45 AM.  The Excellent B class was the first in the ring.

I don't get any opportunity to train in soggy, muddy conditions.  Miska wasn't happy about all the mud; nor was I as my boots almost got stuck trying to heel around the ring. And of course (as luck would have it), I had a conflict with conformation.  However, the judge allowed me to quickly walk the course before the official walk-through but there were signs that were wrong as I later discovered.  Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, Miska & I didn't have a great run.  Her heeling was sloppy because she was trying to dodge puddles and the worst of holes and I didn't have her full attention so we repeated several stations. And then I totally screwed up and did the last station wrong, misinterpreting it as an Excellent sign when it was a Novice/Adv/Exc sign so that was an automatic 10 pt loss.  Sigh. And in the honor (a sit), Miska shuffled her bum several times and then stood a few seconds before the exercise came to an end so that was more points off.  In the end, the judge was a bit generous and just squeaked her by giving us a 70 out of 100. That's the lowest passing score a dog can get but it was a Q (qualifying) score!  Then onto Advanced where Miska excelled, getting a score of 99 and second place!  That gave us/her the 9th leg towards her title.

Miska & Sylvia with 1st place ribbons and 2nd place rosette

Saturday was the only other day I entered Miska in rally.  Conformation was on a little later so we (i.e., I) were more relaxed not having the worry of having to dash over to conformation and show.  So Saturday, Oct. 2 started off really well. I even arrived early enough to help the judge set up the ring.  Miska and I warmed up and she was paying attention to me even though the ground was still very muddy and uneven.  The judge was very forgiving of the conditions and only threw in one exercise that involved making the dogs lie down. The honor was a sit again.  Miska scored 96 in Excellent and ended up in first place!  The Advanced class followed Excellent.  I asked to be moved up to be the first handler/dog in the ring because conformation was going to be on and I had to show 3 dogs there.  Miska had a GREAT Advanced run.  I glanced at our score as I high-tailed it over to conformation. 99/100!  Later on, I learned she took first place.  I then thought to myself, "we're on a roll now! This is going to be a good day!"


So that's how Miska completed her last 2 RAE legs and finished her AKC RAE title, exactly where we started two years ago.  Miska is the 3rd Vizsla I've put an AKC RAE on. She follows in the paw-steps of her father (Sasha) and mom (Nova) who both earned this same title ahead of her. This is title #16 for Miska.