The results on how everyone who participated in Weight Pull at Premier are available now.

PPAPBTA Pull Results

You can see that, while he didn't get a placement, he definitely held his own against the dogs in his weight class. Percentage is calculated as pound of weight pulled per pound of dog pulling. Ranger weighed in at 57# for Saturday and Sunday and 58# for Friday.

Ranger is currently off at cowdog boot camp until September. I miss him very much, but he's having a blast learning to work cows and work alongside several other dogs. 

So, my Premier weekend came in with a bang and went out with one.

 As I said in my previous post, Ranger had a really good Thursday--he won the Best of Breed Top Ten at the Top Ten Invitational, then went on to a 5 point pull in weight pull. This was over 10 times his body weight. He probably could have pulled more but I did a handler withdrawal.

Friday and Saturday Conformation yielded no wins or placements (and thus, no Total Dog award on Saturday), but that was fine because on Saturday Ranger blew me away with his weight pull performance. Ranger pulled his personal best of 1455# on wheels (over 25 times his body weight) for an additional 15 champion points in weight pull. The reason we pushed Ranger in this pull was to see what he could do. That is, now that I know what he is capable of pulling I can adjust his training to something that will improve his performance.

On Sunday Ranger finished out the weekend with the final win needed for his UKC Conformation Grand Champion title. He went on to compete in Weight Pull one more time where he got a 10 point pull (he pulled over 15 times his body weight--19.2 times, to be precise).

Ranger finished the weekend with a great award from the conformation ring, a new title, a personal best weight pull, and a good start on the next title. I came home a proud dog owner with lots of tips on how to improve his performance.

(Ranger needs to learn to stay on the ground and NOT slam into the harness and I have a couple of tricks to try to teach him this). 

 Ranger's examination in the show ring.

I'm making a quick post before I head out for the first day of the UKC Premier.

Yesterday I competed with Ranger in the UKC Top Ten invitational. We competed in the 2009 season and Ranger earned points for Best of Breed wins and ended up #8 for the breed for 2009. 6 of the 10 dogs invited made the trip to Richmond, IN to determine who was the best of the best. Dogs came in from PA, ON, IN and WI. Ranger surprised me and won the Best of Breed Top Ten. He didn't make it out of the semi-finals round, but that's just fine by me.

Later in the day he got the first 5 points toward his advanced Weight Pull titles. We'll be working on those titles more this weekend as well as attempting to get the last win needed for his Grand Champion title, and maybe even a Total Dog award.

I'm really happy that all the conditioning (running with the bike, pulling, long drags, free running) has helped his physical condition.

One of my rainy day activities is to troll craigslist to fill my wishlist. I missed out on a sweet deal on a pull-behind camper trailer last week, but the deal I got yesterday totally made up for it.

 I'd originally planned to get a smooth-skinned aluminum dog box without top storage, but was concerned about it being large enough for my dogs as it was designed for bird dogs.

I found this for the same price as the other box instead.

It's awesome.

It has lockable top storage, lots of ventilation, insulation (cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter) and, being aluminum, won't rust. The only real complaint is that I can't put my stickers on the diamond plate.

I'm working on fixing up the trailer I bought last year so that I can use it when I travel with the dogs. Currently I'm getting about 20 mpg with the OD off (as leaving the OD on while towing isn't good for the transmission), so I'm going to attempt to remove/redo the sides on my trailer to make it a bit lighter.

I'm also working on a frame to help hold everything in place while it's on the trailer. I'll still strap things down, but a small frame will help keep the things like the cooler, water tanks, truck box, and the dog box in one place.