Well, well, well, what an interesting turn of events. Agility is our game. It’s why we come to Nationals. Karma is one of the fastest Vizslas in the country and we wanted to exhibit at the National. We came up 0 for 4. That hasn’t ever happened to us at Nationals. But Karma’s runs were awesome. A few miscommunication errors that cost us Qs, but overall, she was fabulous. Getting to be on her team is one of the biggest highs in life. The judge came up after the day was over and gave some very nice compliments on our girlie. People asked if they could get on our puppy list for Karma’s next litter (broke some hearts when we told them Karma will not be bred) and we just overall had exhibitors tell us what a great team we are. Heck yeah. It sucked to be out of the running for the Iron Dog competition, but Nationals is more about the camaraderie — and nothing is better than watching over 200 runs of Vizsla Agility.
Today was Rally and Obedience day. Jenny had promised Karma back in 2014 that she would NEVER have to do Rally again. However, over the last year Jenny with girlfriends Jamie (Chair,) Ginger, Heather, and Gail created a new Iron Dog competition for the National. Vizslas win points for competing in all the events at Nationals, awarding a Gold, Silver, and Bronze medal to the top competitors. So the promise was broken. Karma not only forgave, but turned in one of her best ever Rally performances with Jenny! She qualified in BOTH Rally Excellent AND Rally Advanced meaning we got to keep the higher of the two scores (her RE score) AND we picked up our very first RAE leg! Go Karm!
In the Obedience ring Karma REALLY shined. Her highest score of the day was a 193 in Beginner Novice. Absolutely thrilled with that score. In the Novice ring, she turned in a 191.5, but her sit stay was the highlight of the year! Remember how she stood up a couple days ago in Iowa? Well, today, was total redemption. During the sit stay, Karma’s neighbor got up and started cleaning her ear! Karma just looked at Jenny, “Mom….is he suppose to do that right now?” She held her sit throughout the ear wash AND when the human approached to remove her dog from the ring. That part was actually more impressive to Jenny…Karma LOVES people, Jenny was pretty sure having a human come up was going to wiggle Karma right out of that stay. But she held her ground and had an uneventful down stay to pick up her very first CD leg! Woohoo!
To round out the day, Karma picked up a 3rd place and a Q in Pre-Novice! Love getting to leave Nationals with a placement rosette! A LOT of firsts for Karma today:
–First RAE leg
–First BN leg
–First CD leg
–First PCD leg
After the Obedience extravaganza was over, Karma took a spin in the Hunting Bitch class at the Regional Specialty. And she picked up a 2nd place finish with her co-owner Tad! A great end to a pretty perfect day 🙂