And One More

Roxie picked up another Rally Novice bumper leg today. Today's trial was outdoors, which adds more distractions and the weather is always a factor. It was pretty hot out there today, with no real place to hide in the shade, and we had to wait a couple of hours before it was our turn because the judge was running late. Roxie took the opportunity to cuddle with Dad while we waited for our turn.



Finally, the moment arrived. Here's today's run:



As expected, Roxie was quite a bit more distracted during our run today than she'd been at any of our indoor trials. So many more things to smell, see, and the heat was quite draining. Still, Roxie came away with a score of 95, which is right up there with our previous scores. Yet again, she managed to handle the new challenges of this situation well. I don't think I'll go out of my way to enter any more outdoor trials though. There's just so many more things to have to worry about and it's not worth adding any extra stress to either of us. The weather is always going to be a factor, because whether it rains or is 95 degrees, the show will go on. I wouldn't show Roxie under those circumstances, so there's always the risk of losing your entry fee at an outdoor trial if the weather isn't favorable. So we'll just try to pick nice trials where we can do our work without worrying about extra craziness.

We're not going to rush into Rally Advanced just yet, but I think that we're done with Rally Novice at this point. I'll see how training goes and decide when to make the move into Advanced. In the meantime, Roxie gets a break from trials for the next month or two.