Spencer, GN

Actually - it's Caduceus Spencer Batrille CD HT RAE3 OAP NJP GN.  Finally.

Spence has come up with so many ways to make life interesting on this GN journey.  Who could forget the Stop Drop and Roll at the Specialty?  And then his Golden Retreiver impersonation the next day?   The Death March in the hot summer sun in Newnan?   Diarrhea in the ring in Louisville (Spencer, not me). DO NOT DRINK THE WATER IN LOUISVILLE). The lovely run the next day, until he decided to walk across the broad jump. And recently, anticipating the recalls and forgetting about the fronts and going straight to the finishes.

Today we did a little drill work before going into the ring to remind him what "wait" and "front" means, and it paid off well on his drop on recall.  When I put the dumbbell in his mouth on the next exercise and walked across the ring for the recall, I was high-fiving myself in my head - the rest of the exercises were a piece of cake.  I get to the other side of the ring and turn around, and . . .

THE DUMBBELL IS ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF THE LITTLE STINKER - HE HAD SPIT IT OUT.

The judge told me to come back and give it to him again - I assumed that we had NQ'd at that point.  He did the rest of the exercises just fine, and after the long down, I started collecting my stuff to head back to my setup.  Then I hear the judge say, "Hey look, #183 got 183 points."  I look down at my armband - I am #183.  I turn to the judge and said, "Are you sure?  After he spit out the dumbbell??"  He said yes - we lost points, but it was not an NQ. 

We'll take it.