Presenting Windfall's Perpetual Motion RN (a.k.a. Jack)
Jack earned his Rally Novice title at the Coyote Cluster this weekend in Tucson, AZ with three back-to-back qualifying scores Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While not quite good enough for placements, all three scores were respectable runs in the 80s. Frankly we’re a bit surprised that his did so well this weekend. At his first trial a couple weeks ago he proved that at 19 months he wasn’t really mentally ready for the ring by failing to qualify - spectacularly - both days. But Michelle has been working hard on attention and heeling since then and it paid off wonderfully.
This was also Jack’s first showing in the conformation ring but the results weren’t quite as good as Rally. He did win Reserve Winners 3 out of 4 days, but hoestly those were only becuase there were only 2 dogs. But our expectations and intentions for this show were not to earn points. Our intention was to give him some real show ring experience and the get an assessment from several judges on his potential in conformation.
Katie Webb handles Jack in the conformation ring - 11/14/2009
All in all the feedback we got was about what we expected. Jack is still very physically immature and can’t compete against more mature dogs at this point. And he still has a significant overbite, which may be his downfall in conformation. He moves beautifully in the ring though, with much credit to his talented handler Katie Webb. Katie knows how to show him to his best advantage.
So we’ll have to let Jack grow up a bit before we try him in the confirmation ring again. He needs to fill out a bit, and hopefully the overbite will correct itself as his jaw grows. We got Jack for perfromance events, not conformation, so we won’t be terribly upset if he never gets his conformation championship. But we are comitted to giving him the chnace and if he turns out to have the potential (once he matures a bit more), we’ll continue to show him through to a championship. But for now, it’s back to obedience training, beginning agility, and maybe a foray into flyball (which we’re sure he’ll be a natural at considering that he loves running and balls more than anything).
This entry was posted on 16 November 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under News.
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