Yellow girls made their Open debut this past weekend
They both did well. Cookie earned an Open B 3rd with a 197 despite needing work on her fronts and finishes. Sass had 2 substantials that kept her out of the ribbons (she was .5 behind the 4th place dog). One was my fault - I had (several) bad dumbbell throws and since we haven't worked the piece of her waiting quietly while the judge retrieves it for a retry, she broke and tried to get it herself. Could have been an NQ but he'd heard me tell someone it was her first time in the ring so just took a substantial (and gave great advice for how to deal with it if it happened again, which is did on the next throw, LOL). She also had a no-sit on one finish due to judge pressure - she swung into heel position and froze like a deer in the headlights staring at the judge like "why is that man standing there looking at me". I know judge pressure is a thing to work on with her (hard to simulate when I am training on my own) but I did have to laugh since this was the final exercise and he'd been watching her the whole time. So 6 points on stuff that we haven't worked on enough but the stuff we have worked she only lost 1.5 points on - without the breaking for the dumbbell between exercises and a with a sit on the finish she would have had a 198.5 and been in a run-off for 2nd with a friend's dog who is working on his OTCH and was 10th at Nationals. Very, very happy with both of them.