She found the RAT!

Our last two saturdays were spent at barn hunt events. We did not plan to attend this weekend but my travel plans got cancelled and I was able to get us a spot in Saturdays trial.

Last week, we had two novice runs. The first one, Sophie hit on bedding. The second run, as soon as we walked in her nose was twitching. She refused to go through the tunnel and followed her nose straight to the rat. Then it took a few moments of coaxing for her to complete the tunnel and climb. She took first place in her height division with a 38 second run and our first Q

This past weekend, I signed her up for Instinct and she received her Q. She then went on to Q in both her novice runs earning second place in each run....and her RATN title.

I am so proud of her. I am working on keeping my mouth closed and letting her work. I try to only call her or talk to her when I see her trying to smell outside the ring or trying to engage with the judges and rat wranglers in the ring. Otherwise, I try to let her work and follow her nose.

We are signed up for one more trial in a few weeks where she will try open for the first time. I am hoping to get in a session with our trainer before then but otherwise we will just give it a whirl.

The other news is Sophie had been signed up for Instinct in the upcoming trial but now can not because she is in Open....so little brother Swyatt will be taking a try at Instinct. I am excited to see how he does and get an idea of how much work we have ahead of us before he tries Novice.