Much more to my liking than dog shows!  Spent the day watching the dogs run.  We ran at North Branch, New Jersey - a site where I usually ran into Maia and her housemate Sylvie, before they moved to California - I missed seeing them there.  I was quite the busy handler since I had six dogs entered.  That's a few more than I'm used to, but since we were only there the one day, I wanted to let most of them run. 

Zuli was the only Saluki entered - again.  There just hasn't been any competition out this year for her.  Her Best in Field run was better than last weekend, but still not very good AND she took a significant tumble when she stepped in a hole.  Thankfully she's fine and suffered no injury, but it did really take her out of contention for the BIF points.

Ruby ran against one other Special and won her stake for one LXC2 point, but was outrun by a young dog for the breed.  I expect this will happen more and more as time goes on since she will be six years old in January.

Kira ran in veterans and placed second of two (but not by much) but collected leg number 24 on her Master Courser title. One more trial and she'll have it.

Avery, Marseille and Derby all ran in the open stake of 14.  Marseille won her first course and was in a tie for first place after the preliminary run.  Derby and Marseille both finished up in a four way tie for 3rd place.  After the runoff, Derby had 3rd (for one more point towards his Field Championship), and Marseille was 4th.  Avery finished just two points back from Derby & Marseille.

After the trial they let several people run ASFA certification runs, so Ruby got to run with one Saluki and Aren got to run with another Saluki so now both of them are ready to enter trials and run.  I sure hope to see one or both of them come out to run, since Zuli is getting WAY to used to running by herself.  I was on the late side getting home but I slept very well, as did all the dogs.

~~Joanne