NAFA tourney in Trenton; Lucy gets a new title

Lucy and Sammy raced with an open DGB team at the beautiful Community Gardens in Trenton. The lineup was Chaos (a Dutch Shepherd from Pawzie Traction who got not one, but two perfect .000 starts!), Lucy, Sammy, and Envy (mini aussie who set the jump heights at 10"). The team ran very cleanly and got tons of points. Lucy picked up her FDCh-G title and a cool handmade memento to mark the occasion. She ran a nearly flawless tournament (just one bobble) and for once I didn't make her do any hot passes, so for once we didn't cause a single flag. Lucy was her usual steady self.

I changed how I release her. Instead of a hand on the collar and one at her waist, I hold her waist only with both hands. This has the benefit of keeping my feet out of her way, and I'm hoping this will better enable her to crouch down. Might try in practice working up to lifting her feet onto mine as I saw lots of people do, but I'm not sure how that will work.

One last note about the tugging situation: She's at the point now where she happily drops the ball to latch onto the treat tug, which she did every time. But, no real tugging yet, and I'm not pushing it for now, although she was tugging well outside the ring for a little bit.