Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Agility Weekend Recap

Overall, our Q rate wasn't that high at the agility trial this past weekend. We only brought home 5 green ribbons out of a total of 12 attempts over the three days. Still, the Q's we did earn were well and truly earned. And as I mentioned in the previous post, it was a good weekend of hanging out with agility friends.

On Friday, Gracie picked up her third Novice B Standard leg (and a first place), earning her NA title. She earned her two AKC Novice titles in a total of six days of trialing. Earlier that morning, both girls had struggled through Jumpers. No Q's there.

On Saturday, Gracie had a stupendous Open Standard run, earning a Q and a first place (video of that below). Out of 56 dogs in Open, there were only 9 Q's. Gracie was the fastest dog with a clean run in the entire Open class with a time of 49.31 seconds (course time was 67 seconds so Gracie really smoked that one).

Mimi picked up a nice Open Jumpers leg on Saturday morning with a second place. She didn't run clean, had one refusal. Still, it was a good run and she deserved that Q. Another of Debbie's students who runs a JRT took first place with a clean run. Here's video of Mimi's Jumpers run.



On Sunday, Mimi had a lovely Open Jumpers run and picked up a Q. But Gracie's run was even better--she took first place in Open Jumpers with a clean run and a perfect score of 100. How good was Gracie's run? There were 43 dogs in the Open class (all heights)--and only 8 Q's, including Mimi. Course time was 35 seconds for 113 yards. Gracie was the third fastest clean dog with a time of 28.29 seconds. Smokin'!

On Sunday afternoon in the Standard class, Mimi was having a nervous breakdown. When I watch the video, I can't really tell from that distance but I can assure you that, up close, she was ready to come apart at the seams with stress. I am amazed that she stayed with me out there.

Gracie's Standard run was really nice, except for this teensy little problem at the beginning. The small brown poodle in the ring before us was fluffy and had a shrill bark and as we were sitting on the start line and Chunky was finishing his run, Gracie became obsessed with him. Her intentions were only to chase him, she would not have done anything physical, but that wasn't going to turn out well no matter what. Could get her kicked out of the trial. She stared and stared and it was difficult for me to redirect her. I thought I had her attention when we started running, but unfortunately as she came out of the chute, there Chunky was, right in her face, leaving the ring with his owner. Zoom! She shot out of the ring after him. I called her back to me and she came right away. We managed to get back on track and finish the course in style.

Now, back to Gracie's Standard run on Saturday. First, here's the video.



The course turned out to be much trickier in practice than it seemed during the walk through and I revised my plans for both girls several times as I watched the 24" and 20" dogs crash and burn one after another. I don't like to revise my plans after I walk but it was clear that this course demanded a different handling plan. The biggest problem for Gracie was going to be that offside weave entry out of the number 10 tunnel, which was not even pointing at the weaves but at the Aframe (see the course map). (Mimi's run on this course was super nice but she unfortunately ticked a bar on the number 13 double and the bar fell. That's an elimination fault. However, her contacts were superb--perfect 2 on 2 off, and she held that down on the table.)


I ended up doing a quick hand change to get Gracie's head right as she came out of the tunnel then turning her away from me into the weaves, all in about 10 feet of distance while both of us are moving. That particular handling move is one we have worked on, and worked on, in class. You can hear Debbie chuckling on the video, and in fact, she came up to me right after our run and gave me a giant hug and said, I got goosebumps when I watched you do that with Gracie.

Then there was the amazing move Gracie did over the panel jump, a sort of sideways hop, at the end of the run. I had not pushed her out far enough after rear crossing the tire and we would have gotten a refusal if she did not go over that jump. No doubt about it, she saved my butt right then. You can hear Debbie and all of the Debbie-tantes cheering as Gracie clears that panel jump. I was also jumping and whooping it up, and everyone in the gate area waiting to run said, wow, was that your title? No, I said, it was just a really great run!

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