That was brutal!

[Root Beer]

But we did OK and the dogs are happily lazing about at home now in air conditioned comfort.

 

We had shade and before I crated each dog, I wet down their bellies. I also let Dean play his favorite "catch the spray" game with the spray bottle.

 

Maddie ran slow, but she ran and she Q'ed in Fullhouse, which earned her Level 1 "Fun" title! We just need to try and Q in the games Snooker and Jackpot to earn our last Level 1 title!

 

Dean did great and would have Q'ed, but when the whistle blew, he freaked and tried to escape from the ring. He did come back to me and went to the table, but we lost almost all of our points in the time it took me to get him back.

 

I have a whistle, so I will spend some time this summer teaching him that the whistle means a BIG TREAT is coming. That's a sound I'm pretty sure I can desensitize him to.

 

In Wildcard, Maddie ran slow again, but she was steady and stayed with me until the very last tunnel. She ran around it, but came back and went through. No faults, so that earned her Level 2 "Handler" title!! At that point I saw that she had done all she was going to do, so that was her last run of the day.

 

I was looking for Dean to just enjoy himself in Wildcard and he did. He ran around a lot of things, but he had a good time and he stayed with me nicely.

 

Then Dean had his favorite part - I took him down to go swimming! He heartily approved of that.

 

My friend and I decided to scratch our standard runs. Two runs per dog were plenty for them in this heat, and four runs were enough for me!

 

Their next trials are in late September and late October and I'm looking forward to going back.

 

Thanks again for all of the "keeping cool" suggestions! They helped.