AKC x 2

Yes, I know it has almost been TWO months since I updated last! Hopefully that doesn't become a habit, but it might. Life is just busy right now, and we aren't doing any agility lately....more on that to come.

Hobbs and I were able to compete in two more AKC trials last month, our 6th and 7th so far this year, and for the most part they were pretty good. Lets just say that, so far, Excellent is kicking our butts.

The first one was at a beautiful site, a large horse farm with huge grass paddocks and the grass arena they turned into agility rings. The only classes we Q'd in were Open FAST and T2B preferred. We had two other really REALLY nice runs, but the little mistakes I made cost us the runs. Here are the courses and as much as I can remember about them.....forgive me. Its been two months :(

Friday:

Excellent STD - This was such a nice run! We had one refusal at #15, I think, because I didn't support him enough over the jump.

Excellent JWW - Another really nice run that was SO close to being a Q! It was another refusal, but I can't remember where on the course it was.

Open FAST - This course was great. Fast and easy! No problem with the bonus, and we got our 2nd open leg.

Saturday:

Excellent JWW - Bad run. 3 Refusals and 1 wrong course :( Looking at the course, I don't remember why it was so difficult. I think we were just having a bad day. I do have this one on video somewhere, but I can't find it for the life of me! I do remember that his landing coming off #12 it looked like he might have hurt his leg. I stopped to watch him move around for a second before finishing the course.

T2B - Our only good run of the day and it was REALLY good! HERE is the video. It is on a friend's Facebook page so hopefully people can see it.

Excellent STD - Another REALLY bad run. I think I got overconfident with this run because the course was almost identical to T2B. Hobbs missed the weave entry twice and it just got worse from there. I don't even know how many faults we had or what they were, but it was BAD. He also dropped at least 2 bars! Not like him :(

Saturday in general was a tough day for me. It was the 1 month anniversary of losing our little Cadence.....so my mind was elsewhere for parts of the day. I would like to think that contributed to our horrible runs.

Our next trial was just two weeks later, and it was SO much colder! During the two week break I gave Hobbs a lot of rest time because it seemed like he was moving weird. Not limping, but not moving right. After the two weeks it seemed that he was good again, so we went to the trial.

Friday:

Open FAST - This course really interesting. The bonus line was odd, and it was the first time the judge had tried something like it. If you look at the picture, you can see there was a vertical line and a horizontal line. To get the bonus you had to stay below the horizontal line or to the left of the vertical line until after the dog was in the chute, then you had to cross the line, so that you were above the horizontal line and to the right of the vertical line, before you sent the dog into the tunnel. Anyways, our run was amazingly smooth and wonderful until the weave poles. Hobbs missed the entry once, twice, and finally got it on the third try. After the second try I started to think "It has been a really long time. The buzzer should have rung by now!" It turns out I was right. The timer was having issues and didn't work properly for my run. So, after a 1 dog break I got to do it again for points and time. I ran the exact same course and it went really well again, but Hobbs still missed his weave entry 2 times before I skipped it and ran for the end of the course. We Q'd, got our OFP title, and moved up to Excellent for the next day.

Excellent STD - This course was beautiful! Right up until he missed the weave entry....twice.

Excellent JWW - This course was also really beautiful! Hobbs was getting a bit tired though because it was the end of the day, and he dropped two bars. I think I was getting tired too and didn't handle as well as I could have. He really hasn't had a problem with bars in a long time.....well except the last trial. He got his weave entry though which was my only goal for this course.

Saturday:

Excellent STD - This was such a wonderful course, and our run was practically flawless! I almost lost him at #12 because he locked onto the table. This was our 3rd standard leg in Excellent A so Hobbs now has his AXP!! We still haven't gotten his certificate from AKC though, so I may have to check on it.

Excellent JWW - Ugh. This was our 9th run in Excellent, and our 9th NQ. This one was another really close one too. Our mistake happened at #8. He jumped it thinking he was turning right and when I called to him he back jumped it.....I wanted to cry at that point. The rest of the course was wonderful, but my records say we also dropped a bar. If he dropped the bar as he back jumped #8 would that count as a fault? Because we got one wrong course and one fault.

Excellent FAST!! - This bonus was really intimidating! I was really excited about being in Excellent FAST though. I walked my planned opening of this course a ton. I planned to put him on the start line pointed at the double, then turn left and go through the chute, then over the five 1 point jumps that are in a "line" to the bonus. I was one of two people who did that opening, and the other person did it because she saw me walking it that way. It worked out well for both of us! As for the bonus. No one was getting it. The handler couldn't cross the line until after all 4 paws of the dog were on the ground after the A-frame.

Hobbs and I nailed it!! I put my whole body into letting him know he needed to stay on the A-frame while I went around the skewed jump that was on the bonus line. Then I let him creep down until he was in the yellow, then released him. Here is where my plan was off. I immediately tried to push him over to the weave poles and he missed the entry. Then I panicked about the time and ran for the finish, picking up the triple and tire on our way out. Thinking back, I should have taken the extra second to set him up nicely for the poles to get the 10 points. We would have had 1 or 2 time faults, but more overall points. But we still got a Q!! I really wish we would have gotten a video of that run....I was so proud of it! I think we were one of 2 or 3 20" dogs that got the bonus.