After a full week of obedience classes it was VERY difficult to get up in the middle of the night to make the 4 hour drive to North Branch, but I eventually got myself going & got there.

The weather at the December IWAGS trials is always cold, and this year was no exception.  I only entered Ruby & Zuli today, as the Whippet judge for the day looks for something that my dogs don't have so we never score well when they are judging.  The field was frozen when we started running and they ended up modifying the course a little just before Ruby ran to avoid a big patch of ice.  Ruby was the only Greyhound entered so the lure could be run just for her and it kept her safe. 

Besides Zuli, there was one Saluki running in the Open stake, but we ran a mixed stake to save time and wear & tear on the equipment.  Zuli did end up winning Best of Breed over the Open dog and thereby earned the first point towards her LCX-3 title <VBG>.  I opted to not run her for Best in Field as she was running very well, and I wanted to give Ruby the best chance to win BIF that I could as Ruby only needs 5 points to finish her LCX-2 title.

Ruby had a really good run for Field, but the judge (the same one that was judging Whippets today) decided that the Borzoi should be the BIF winner, so Ruby will have to wait until next year for another chance to finish her next title.

Thankfully this trial was finished before dark and I was actually packed up and leaving the field at 4:30!  Yea!  Between  periods of snow and then rain and traffic backed up around Philadelphia it ended up taking me almost 5 hours to get home, instead of the almost 4 it usually takes.  Nice thing was that the heat in the van works well so we were all toasty warm all the way home.

~~Joanne