I entered Gimme in 12 classes for a 3-day trial, equally split between Crazy8 and Masters. My main goal was to get a Masters Q, which would finish her barn hunt championship. Naturally she came in season the day before the trial started. This works out well for us, since she is in a blind of 1-2 dogs, which means much less waiting around and no real stress from the presence of other dogs. The dog who blinding with her is small and owner-carried, so Gimme doesn't count her as a dog. On the other hand, she is more distractible when she's in her special condition. Another advantage is that I can remove her harness when we are up next, so it makes it faster and smoother to get in the ring and start quickly. By the end of the weekend I dispensed with the harness altogether.
Saturday --
Crazy 8 (1) - Indeed she started out distracted, but once she got the first rat, then she was really into it. She did climb, tunnel and found 5 rats for 70 points. This is her personal best and brings her Crazy 8 point total to 780. She is already more than halfway to the next level title.
Masters (1) video - Gimme did a good job here, getting 3 out of 4 rats. The course had a large distance challenge and she went into it twice. The second time I was looking in from a different angle and I saw her vigorously scratching at a spot near a bale, but what she was scratching at was obscured from where I was. Ordinarily I move a little away to test her commitment, but I didn't feel like I could do that when she was already so far away. I called alert and was wrong. As she was coming toward me she found the rat tube close to where I was, in a spot she hadn't been yet. I suspect the scratching was probably just her checking a pee spot from a rat tube location for a prior blind. My bad. Note to self: As she was scratching, I only saw shavings flying, no straw.
The comment about her panties refers to her little hop as she came out of the tunnel. Each time, all weekend, she'd hop her butt up as she exited the tunnel, rubbing her panties against the edge cover. Most times the edge cover (gray pipe insulation) came off and ended up away from the tunnel. She never got the panties off, but she did manage to slip the waistband down a bit - which I'd pull up again each time she found a rat (the time when I'm allowed to touch her while we're in the ring). BTW for this class she never did do the tunnel, which is odd for her.
Crazy 8 (2) - Gimme came in raring to go and I hoped she'd have another stellar effort. Unfortunately some rude, stupid, inconsiderate handler walked her dog too close to the ring and then stood there letting the little booger pee on a nearby post (less than 6', rules require them to keep 10' away). I told her to move along, but by then Gimme was distracted and it took her a bit to refocus on finding rats. We still came away with 50 points, but it could have been more. This brings us to 830, so it's possible Gimme could finish another title this weekend. We'll see.
Masters RATCH win video - Gimme did a great job. She found two rats, then she found the rat in the distance challenge. I couldn't see what she was alerting on, so I started to move to the end of the challenge area to see what I could see. Gimme started to come with me, then turned and went back to bark some more, so I called it. She was right. I have to say I wasn't sure where it was she was alerting to, but quickly figured it out. After removing the rat, Gimme came out with me and after a little bit found another. Then did the tunnel on her own. She searched around a bit and not finding anything did another tunnel. She got around to the back of the big pile where she'd shown interest before and didn't come away when I delayed following her (not wanting to sell her on something that wasn't there). When I got there she was persistent in that spot and I called "rat-finished" on the fifth rat. The judge commented how nice it was to have a dog like Gimme for the last run of the day, since she cleared the course, saving the ring crew time.
Gimme is now a barn hunt champion, having gotten her 10th Q in Masters. I was so proud of her. We were the very last dog in the trial today because of her special condition, so there were very few people there. There were a couple friends and ring crew. The ribbon for her RATCH is huge. I may have to move things to display it at home. So I got a huge ribbon and a chocolate milkshake to celebrate our accomplishment. I stopped at Safeway to get Gimme a new toy. She has most of the toys they sell. Of the ones she didn't have, I couldn't make up my mind which to get - so I bought all three. This made her happy for a short while. Like most kids, she quickly lost interest and says "I don't have a thing to play with..."
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