Year in Review

Our second year of competitive agility was AWESOME!! Here is our summary:

2011

Trials - 8

• ASCA - 1 - February
• AKC - 7 - January, February, May, June, July, and September

Q's - 23 (this is DOUBLE from last year!!)

• ASCA - 3
• AKC - 20

Titles - 7

• ASCA - GS-N (novice gamblers)
• AKC - NAP (novice agility preferred), NFP (novice FAST preferred), OJP (open JWW preferred), OAP (open agility preferred), OFP (open FAST preferred), AXP (agility excellent preferred)

I truly LOVED our year of agility! My little dog did me proud on almost every single run. The only ones he had a lot of trouble with were the ones at our Idaho trial. The thing I wish I had tried harder with was practicing and keeping him fit. He may or may not have injured himself during our last trial, and part of that is probably because he wasn't fit enough. I openly admit that, but it is tough to keep a dog fit with a two year old and being pregnant most of the year. I will do better this next year! If he had been fit, we could have had 3 more months of agility this year. Instead, I was trying to keep him sane while he healed.

*Our Agility goals for next year:

*Get out of Excellent A!!! - or at least get an Excellent JWW Q
*Earn a QQ towards Hobbs' PACH
*Earn half of our speed points towards a PACH (that is 375 points)
*Trial more in ASCA
*Attend a seminar
*Attend AKC Nationals! Lol as a spectator anyways
*Get and keep Hobbs fit
*Practice 3x per week (at least)
*Come up with a pre-run routine
*Get a reliable A-frame contact
*Complete the weave pole challenge
*Trust my dog more at trials
*Trial like I practice
*Have FUN!!

AKC and new Title......NOT!!

The trial this weekend was great! It was a wonderful return to agility for both of us (after almost 3 months), and I am very proud of us both.

I will post videos of a couple of the runs, but they will probably be a few days away.

Friday we ended up getting to the site an hour and a half early because I read the premium wrong. It ended up being ok because I got an amazing little private place for Hobbs' crate and a great parking spot. I was sleep deprived and just not feeling great. Probably just pregnancy mixed with not enough sleep. The trial site has a TON of stairs and the dogs are crated at the top of them, with the agility rings and bathrooms at the bottom. So if you want anything you had to go up and down the stairs.

Our first run was FAST and this was the first time I had entered it. The send was really easy and I planned a great course. Our run ended up being only 19 seconds long, we got the bonus, and had a total of 61 points! It was so much fun! So we started out the weekend with a first place and a Q. Here is the course:

Friday FAST course Q and 1st place

Next up was Standard and I was really nervous thinking it would be our qualifying run for our NAP title. Hobbs thought we were turning one way over a jump and when he realized we were going the other way (mid air) he dropped his back legs and knocked the bar. Then he jumped his A-frame contact.....Ggrrr. Other that those, the run was really together and smooth.

Last of all that day was JWW and the course was the most intimidating I had ever seen in novice. I actually couldn't look at it on the paper all day because it scared me so much. It didn't seem as hard when we walked it and I went onto the course confident that we could do it. Well, I set up my body wrong to call him off the start line and he got locked onto an off course jump.....and took it behind my back. When I got him back on course the rest of the run was AMAZINGLY smooth and together.

I was exhausted by the end of the day, and went to bed at 8:45 as soon as I had Kaylee in bed. I didn't know if I was going to be able to survive the next day. Luckily, I wasn't planning to get to the trial site until almost 10 the next day so I planned to sleep until Kaylee woke up. So I ended up getting almost 12 hours of sleep. The only problem with that was that I spent the whole night dreaming and having nightmares about agility. It was NOT a fun night. I felt SO much better by the next morning though, and was ready to go for another day.

Saturday was great! Jumpers was first for the day, and it wasn't a bad course. The first 3 jumps were the exact same as Friday's course so I decided to try again to call him to me. This time it worked! I made sure to point my body the direction I planned to go, and he did exactly what he was supposed to. The rest of the course flowed really well, and It felt really good. Q #2 for the weekend! Here is the course:

Saturday JWW Q and 2nd place

I hadn't entered FAST that day, but I really wish I would have. It was a fun send, and I think we could have Q'd easily.

Last of all for the day was standard, and it was a pretty interesting/tough course. It ran really smoothly though, and I only felt like I was getting frantic with Hobbs once. I swear he looked up at me like "what that crap are you yelling at me for?!?" He didn't jump his A-frame but I think it was only because I did a front cross after it. We once again had a clean round and got another Q and second place! Here is the course:

Saturday Standard - Q and 2nd place

After this run I was ecstatic! I was so proud that we had gotten our standard novice title. I got a beautiful New Title ribbon, and raced home to show it off to Robert and Kaylee.

Sadly, when I got home and started putting this trial information in to the record keeping software on my computer, I realized that I had miss counted. We still need 1 more standard Q for our title. So I put the pretty ribbon away, and stopped celebrating. I just keep telling myself that we have another two chances next month.

All in all, it was a great first trial back!

AKC Trial #2

Hobbs and I recently got back from our second AKC trial, and it was great!

I was worried about Hobbs with him recovering from the UTI and all. It did seem to be bothering him on Saturday, but that was the first day he was off the anti inflammatory so I think he was hurting a little. Am I bad for having him run anyways?

Anyway, our first run was Jumpers and it was a DISASTER! Ok, it wasn't that bad, but for as easy a course as it was I was ashamed that we couldn't handle it. I am noticing a pattern for our trials that I don't like. No matter how easy the first course is, we mess it up. I observed some things this weekend that I am going to try to learn from and correct/work on at our next trial

Here is the video from that run:

The video is pretty crappy, and starts in the middle of the run, but if you couldn't tell he entered the weaves on like the 3rd pole the first try, ran PAST them the second and finally did them properly on the third try. Then I forgot my handling plan and rear crossed a jump which gave him the wrong directions and he missed the middle jump in the pinwheel.... something we obviously need to work on. We got a Q in that class still, but I was really disappointed in both of us on that run.

The thing I LOVED about this run is how fast he was going! He blasted full out across the dogwalk and didn't stop until all four feet were on the ground rather than his 2o2o....hopefully all this testing his contacts in class isn't working against us in trials. I felt a little behind in my handling cues so we got some wide turns on my front and rear crosses. Unfortunately, he jumped his A-frame contact, almost had a fly off on the teeter, but I didn't let it get to me and we finished the run really well. And, he got the weave poles on the first try. We didn't get a Q in that class, but I was proud of the run without it.

One thing I noticed before our standard run was that I was interacting with him more during our warm up. Looking back at the weekend, I can't even remember what we did in our warm up before the Jumpers run that was such a disaster. I decided that at our next trial I am going to focus on our very first warm up so we get the most out of it and see if it makes our first run better. I even bought him a new toy for that purpose.

New toy just for agility trial warm ups

One of the best parts of Friday was what we won in the raffle! I debated entering all day and finally did at the last minute put two tickets in ($2), and we won a jump and wings!

Saturday was great too! Hobbs was feeling much better, and we had a lot of fun.

Hobbs was super fast on his Jumpers run this day, but I slowed WAY down for him to get his weave entry. I need to work on those so they aren't an issue in trials. Other than that, I felt like he handled great, and the bar that he did drop was my fault for being late on my front cross....I think. I can't every tell from the videos if I am early or late. What do you think this one was? We didn't Q because of the bar, but it was a good run anyways.

Standard was our best run yet until the end because I forgot how tight the turn to the weave poles was and got in Hobbs' way for his entry. He got it eventually though, and we got another Q for the run. He got his A-frame contact but just barely......something else to work on. I was a little worried about the teeter, but he did it wonderfully and stuck the landing. It was an especially great run because it was our 3rd standard Q so Hobbs earned his first ever agility title (I believe it is the Novice Agility Preferred or NAP) but I am not !00% sure yet. I had someone else video this run because my camera died, so I don't have it yet. I will post it when I do.

Our spoils for the weekend:

The ribbons

I am so proud of my little man!