We had too much fun back in August trying out a Coursing Ability Test for the first time. We had our eyes peeled for another opportunity to run our dogs, and maybe earn their Coursing Ability titles (CA titles require 3 legs/passes.) We heard a few rumors that there would be a test in November, but nothing seemed to come to fruition. And then, there it was, but in October! A limited entry opportunity in Wellington, Colorado with the Rocky Mountain Coursing Club. We jumped at the chance and got our entries in the next day.
Earlier this year, Karma’s Uncle Redford became the first Vizsla in AKC history to earn the CA title. We haven’t heard about any other Vizslas finishing this title, so we did a little research last night, and we discovered that if Indy and Karma finished today, they would be CA #2 and #3! And not only that, Karma would be the FIRST FEMALE Vizsla to earn the title — cute, right? A little family affair, but she had to pass first.
Making our day even more fun, Steffie wanted to come!! Steffie isn’t just the best handler and Karma’s favorite person in the whole world, she is also a Basenji breeder. Basenjis are sight hounds, and all of Steffie’s Basenjis have Junior Courser titles. She wanted to watch Karmie and Indo so badly that she woke up super early to be at our house by 6:15 this morning! Karma was so happy and sat on Steffie’s lap the whole way up to Wellington.
We made it up to Wellington, did our inspections (they check to make sure your girls aren’t in season, and then have you do a down and back to check for any lameness), and hit the starting line.
Indy and Marc were up first and thank goodness!! Indy is our vocal kid and started roo-rooing at the top of his lungs during the test run! He just loves chasing plastic bunnies. Today’s course was a little longer than normal. Instead of the typical 600 yards, this one was 700. The judge asked Marc if Indy would be okay with that — Marc said he’d be fine, and off Indy went. He did an excellent job and finished his CA title. Now Indy’s “official” name is Ch Boulder’s Indy-Go RN MH CA CGG. He’s becoming quite the alphabet soup dog 🙂
Then it was Karmie’s turn. Jenny could barely hold her back at the line. Steffie filmed both runs today, and she captured Karma walking up to the line. When you watch it, you’ll get a good sense of this girl’s prey drive! Tally-ho and she was off, running like the wind. She ran so fast that she caught the lure!! Once she released her prey, they started the line again, and she took right back off and made it back around to us and her blaze ribbon. The ribbon meant she did it! Our little Karm is the first female Vizsla to earn a CA title! Steffie was so proud and started calling Karma her little Vee-senji 🙂
And as a side note — This morning before check-in we overheard a conversation where a gentleman was talking about what a waste of time CAT is. These non-sighthounds were going to lose interest, the owners weren’t going to be able to get them back, etc etc etc. He obviously didn’t think much of us non-sighthound peeps. So imagine our surprise when this SAME gentleman came up to us as we were packing up and complimented us on our dogs! He said they were spectacular and we should count ourselves lucky to have such nice running dogs. We were pretty proud that our kids helped open his eyes to this whole CAT thing 🙂
Check out the links to see their runs and a few cool photos below!
