Double Q # 27

Riley also had a good trial and ran very well.  On Friday and Saturday, she won the Standard classes and also Double Qualified on Saturday (#27).  It was really hot on Saturday and her Jumpers run was late in the afternoon.  So on the video you will see her slowest Jumpers run to date, I think.

It is always a tough call.  If I wet Riley down, it often makes her crazy.  She is very funny about bugs landing on her and she often reacts to the water dripping down her legs as if they are bugs.  So if I am not careful, I could get a serious case of the zoomies.  But if I do not wet her down, I may get the slowest run ever.  I may experiment with wetting her down about 10 minutes before her run and really squeegee off the excess water.  That might work.

And then on Sunday, Riley was quite naughty in Standard.  She left the start line early (before I had released her) and then she came off the table two or three times without me releasing her.  We were finally whistled off the course because I put Riley back on the table after the judge had said go (but I had NOT) and it was deemed training in the ring (a forbidden activity). Here are those runs.

Since Riley's Sunday Standard run was a disaster, I scratched her from Jumpers.  The rehab vet I take the girls to regularly had noted some lower back and soas soreness in our last appointment.  So far, it has not show itself in her performance... Riley jumps, weaves, and climbs like nothing is bothering her.  We decided that after this trial I would give her a couple of weeks of rest, laser treatment, stretching, and massage to try and knock it out.  It might just be one of those aches and pains that we all have (including dogs) that we deal with and ignore, but we will give it our best effort to eliminate or minimize it.  Like Seven's bad wrist, it is probably one of those things I will have to continue to beat back regularly.

 Riley is not very happy about all rest and no play, but we will get through it.