Today was day 3 of judging in Monroe, LA and I can't emphasize enough how much fun Dan and I have had.I feel like a broken record, but the people here have been so friendly and an absolute joy to be around.
We had a chance to sample some local cuisine when a club member's husband made homemade jambalaya for lunch. It had just the right spice, a tone of sausage & chicken and was so incredible. Both Dan and I went back for seconds : )
Okay, onto the courses. I judged JWW and Dan judged Standard.
I LOVED my JWW course, solely because the dogs were running and they really looked like they were having a blast.
The tunnels, taken 3 times right in the beginning seemed to really rev up the dogs and they came blasting out of each tunnel so that by the time they started the jumps, they were as high as a kite!
The things that nabbed handlers were 1) the wrong side of the #4 tunnel, 2) the #12 jump which resulted in either a dropped bar or if handlers were doing a rear cross, they executed the crossing early and pulled the dog off the jump, or 3) the #16 jump where dogs bypassed the jump in their haste to get through the closing sequence.
In terms of my favorite parts of handling, I thought folks who were able to do a timely front cross between the #3 & 4 tunnels as well as a front cross between jumps #7 & 8 and #11 & 12 were able to direct their dogs very nicely through the course.
Unlike the last several days, folks who used extreme distance were also very successful maneuvering on this course. So basically, just about any handling type worked well - my favorite type of courses!
As for Standard, Dan said he really liked how the course ran, but that he had one hell of a judge's path that required a ton of mileage on his part. Apparently he had to hoof it around the course to get from place to place in order to do the judgely deed. After taking a quick look at it, there seemed to be some definite handling sections, but I'm confident these handlers were up for the challenge - after all, from what I've seen over the last few days, they really are terrific at this specific skill.
Oh, on a side note, we've picked a name for our new puppy. We've decided to keep the name his Grandma gave him, which is Zulu. Since Zulu is one of the crews who are a part of the Mardi Gras parade (more specifically, it is a group who paint their faces black with a white outline, just like the coloring of our little pup), we've decided his fancy AKC name will be "Keeva's Mardi Gras Adventure" with a call name of Zulu.
Zulu is such a wonderful puppy. He was hesitant yesterday when we took him back to stay with us, but as of this morning Zulu was very warm and welcoming toward us and he really seems to have figured out we adore him. As I type this note, he's sleeping between the two of us on the bed up by the pillows. Yeap, he's going to be spoiled, just like the rest of our pups.
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