Sport completed her Agility Dog (AD) title at the Bay Team trial on July 5, completing 3 other titles along the way (Starters Standard, Jumpers, Gamblers). She also had 2 legs each in Snooker and Pairs Relay.
This video is from her Advanced Jumpers run- first leg. She was a Very Good Girl, except for the start-line stay!
Sport Advanced Jumpers run – on YouTube
It’s so fun to be back in agility competition again after a 6 month hiatus! We were at the Haute Tracs USDAA agility trial in Dixon today, where Sporty qualified in Starters Jumpers and Starters Pairs – both with a 2nd place, and a Starters Standard leg with a 5th place. In Standard she would have placed higher had she not decided to pop up and bark at me on the table– wasted a good 10 seconds of time! We didn’t qualify in Grand Prix because she bailed off the teeter, but I couldn’t have been more pleased with the rest of the run so it really didn’t matter.
We had a *blast* today– it was totally worth taking a day off work, waking up at 4:30am, and driving 225 miles round trip for! Lots of agility friends there– a terrific day.
Sport completed her Open Jumpers (OAJ) title last weekend (!!!), and this was the map of the course:
Parts of the course I’d like to improve: I over-managed the triple to the weaves (9 to 10), sending her to the right instead of rounding nicely into the poles. Lost a bunch of time there.
Also I’d like to clean up the sequence of jumps from 11 to 15. Sport was hauling from 11-13, so her take-off point on jump 13 was very far back, causing us to go really wide from 13-14. I’m not really sure what the ideal handling for 12-14 should be given the setup (with jump 1 set up there as well). Hmm… time to set up the Ready Jumps!
Sport and I competed in a USDAA (US Dog Agility Association) agility trial today for her first time, qualifying with a 2nd place in Starters Standard and qualifying with a 3rd place in Starters Snooker. She is in the Championship 22″ height class against mostly Border Collies so we’re feeling pretty good about our performance today. Looking forward to the next trial, but first we’ll catch up on some sleep.
I recently had the pleasure of attending a working agility seminar taught by trainer Guy Blancke from Smooth Moves Agility. This is one of the most worthwhile seminars I’ve ever been to, in any venue. Guy is one of those rare people that can distill complex information into simple concepts that are easily understood and applied. He also videotapes the runs so you can better understand handling errors, and even more powerful, see your progress after applying his methods.
We had a shaky start to the seminar, barely completing the first agility course, as Sport had only just finished learning all the obstacles and we had not yet done much coursework. Here is a video of me and Sport working together the second day of the seminar.
Lola earned her AKC AXJ (Agility Jumpers Excellent) title today at the Countywide Agility Trial in Petaluma, under judge Kylie Bourke. She went on to earn her first 4 MACH points the next day.
At the haute dawgs/tracs agility trial this weekend, Lola earned her Advanced Jumpers and Advanced Snooker titles with a 4th and a 2nd place. Yay!
Lola picked up another leg toward her AX this weekend, our last trial of the year. This year was a little slow for AKC, as we did a lot of USDAA trials. Next year will be our quest for the MX titles!
We’ve all known that Lola loves agility, but today she earned the USDAA title of Agility Dog after completing her final Starters Standard leg. She also needed 1 leg in each game (Pairs Relay, Jumpers, Gamblers, Snooker), of which she got at least 3 in each earning her separate titles in each game. Combined with her AKC titles this makes her:
Sandspur It’s Easy To Be Me AD SSA SS SR SG SJ OA OAJ CGC