Well, River and I survived our first round of Rally Advanced. This level is off-leash and a big step up in skill level from Rally Novice. We had to do a stand and walk around, pivots, and jumps, among other craziness.
Our first run was awesome, except for a some errors on my part. A 10 pt deduction for me failing to wait for River to sit at the end of one exercise... another 10pts because we weren't prepared for the pivot. Honestly, if the day 2 judge had been there, that one would have been fine; she was allowing a lot of foot movement in the pivot, but not this lady. And one pt for my hesitation at the jump. See? ALL MY FAULT. But despite the low score, it was an amazing run, she was glued to my side and working like a champ. Only 3 qualifications in our group, so we ended up with 2nd place, and a stuffed cheeseburger.
Day 2... Day 2 was rough. I worked our collective arse off trying to nail the pivots. By the time we entered the ring at about 5:15, she was so tired she wouldn't do anything for me; and then my stepdaughter stood right next to the ring to video the run on her camera and River trotted off to her to go say hi. BUT! We did nail the pivot and the stand and the jump. A ton of little errors, but we eked out a second qualifying run, as well as an embarrassing 2nd place finish. This time River picked out a big fluffy cube toy.
WHEW!