Hello again! March is a busy month in the Agility world for us. We have 3 trials this month, and just got back from the first one this weekend!
This was a really big 4 day long event, but Philip and I only went on Saturday and Sunday since I have to work and all :) The event also had Obedience, Rally-O and other fun stuff going on, but more on that in a bit.
Saturday's Standard run was a usual disaster, though it was an extremely tough course. Our fiasco started off with a missed contact on the Dog Walk! That was definitely a first for Philip, and I actually didn't know it even happened until after the run. I really need to enforce the contacts with Philip more. He tends to run off without stopping in trials, even though he does his two-on-two-off in class. Besides that, he also took a wrong jump (I totally expected that one, it was a really tough turn), and made another mistake that escapes me right now.
Before having our JWW run, I went to check out the Obedience rings, and saw the CGC testing area (that was going on the whole weekend as well). I've been wanting to get Philip his CGC for a while now, but I always felt like he'd fail the dog greeting and stranger greeting parts of the test, since he is a jumpy boy. I told the CGC lady that I wanted to watch a test before trying it, but she encouraged me that Philip is behaving really well and I should just try it. I wasn't convinced yet, so I told her I had an Agility run to do, but that I might come back later.
The JWW run was a much better turn out. Philip was getting nicely tired by the time it came up, so he paid attention to me, and he did the course very nicely. There were a couple of spots where I had to scream for him, but he actually listened and came back to me. He got a Q taking 7th place, and earned 4 more MACH points :)
Being such a big event, there were a lot of dogs there, so we had to wait quiet a while for our FAST run. So while waiting, I went back to the CGC area. I thought I would sign up for a spot with Philip, but apparently the tester lady figured we came to test, and started it before I even realized it! She petted him, looked at his ears and teeth, lifted his paws, brushed him, and Philip just sat there like a sweet little angel boy! I was so amazed at it. She then asked us to do some commands - sit, down, stay, come, as well as walking nicely on leash, and working with distractions (two girls did some hula hoop spinning near us). We walked by a dog, and shook hands with the tester. Last but not least, I left Philip with the tester on leash, and went behind a trailer to fill out paperwork. This is usually the hardest part of the test since dogs don't like having their owner out of sight, but Philip has a great stay and has been out of my sight many times, so I knew he'd have zero issues with that one. And so we passed our CGC test! I never imagined it would be so simple, I'm so proud of my boy :)
Anyway, back to Agility, the FAST run. As you might remember from our last trial, Philip had finished his Open FAST title, so this weekend we got to try Excellent FAST. In Excellent there are 5 more points to earn (for a total of 60), and 5 more feet on distance (for a total of 15). Saturday's send bonus included a tunnel, out to a jump, then having to do a 180 from the jump back into the same tunnel. The points weren't so bad to get in this course, but I decided to go for the send first. With Philip's love for tunnels, you'd think this send would have been easy-peasy, but the U-turn proved to be a little too much. Philip took the tunnel, and the jump, and came back around it, but the turn made him lose his momentum, so I couldn't get him to go back into the tunnel. He was just so confused, and then found something to sniff in the grass, so we got a fault for our send. Of course, no send = NQ in FAST.
Before walking off course though, I figured I'd do a little contact practice. In our class just a few days earlier, the instructor was talking about how if you mess up your run early in the course, you might as well practice things you have trouble with, and pointed out the contacts is one of those things for Philip. So I took him to the A-Frame, and he blew off it as he usually does in trials. No contact meant no running for him, so I turned around to the exit. In hindsight, I should have picked him up and carried him out (as our instructor told me, but alas - I forgot). By running him out, he still got to take a couple of jumps and have some fun on the way, so it might not have stuck so well that he did something wrong. Oh well, next time I'll hopefully remember.
That wraps up our Saturday shenanigans, and this post is getting long, so I'm going to split it up, read up on Sunday shortly in the new post! :)
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
February AKC Trial 2
This past weekend marked exactly a year since Philip and I started running in AKC Agility competitions. We went to the same trial that it all began with last year, one which is famous to be on a rainy weekend with lots of mud. Even though the forecasts were promising earlier in the week, this year still wasn't an exception, and it started pouring Friday night... Even though last year a few select people (including yours truly) braved the course anyway, this year the trial secretary decided to cancel the runs on Saturday. I ended up driving to the site anyway since the email didn't go out until after I had left home, and it definitely looked slushy there, so maybe it was for the best. Still though, it sucks since we all paid for it and didn't even get to try - don't think we'll be getting any refunds.
The weather cleared up by Sunday though, so we were on for our 3 runs. First up was Standard, and Philip did a pretty good job, except being sucked onto the Teeter at the very beginning, earning himself a wrong course. He also stopped before getting up on the table, though I heard that another dog had peed on it earlier, so that might have been why.
The jumpers course was set up with a very tricky beginning - there were 3 jumps straight out, but the dogs had to only take 2 of them, and then take a sharp U-turn into a tunnel. I managed to turn Philip away from the 3rd jump, but he didn't turn far enough and went for a different jump out to the right instead of the tunnel. He also ended up knocking the 2nd jump bar, and then another later.
So we got two NQs in those runs and had quite a while to wait before our FAST run, which was the last thing of the day. This trial was taking place as part of a bigger dog show, so I went to see the pretty doggies during the break. Philip got quite a bit attention there since he was all muddy (I let him romp in some slush after the runs) - everyone commented on how much fun he must have had that morning :) Unfortunately, I forgot to grab my camera, so no pictures of pretty dogs for you guys, but I saw one super weird dog. It was called a Bergamasco, and you guys should totally look it up, such a strange looking dog!
Anyway, back to Agility. We finally got to run FAST around 3pm (ugh!), and I thought it'd be easy as always, however Philip had gone completely out the window! We began with a tire into the weave poles, which he messed up, and I didn't bother fixing. So we ran ahead to the Send Bonus which included a jump, an A-Frame, and a tunnel. Well usually we have no problem with these things, but Philip just would not go to the jump! I was flabbergasted. Finally he went over it after me taking him in circles for the 3rd time, and he easily did the other two obstacles of the Send. After that I wanted him to turn left, but he totally ignored me and ran straight ahead. It's no big deal in FAST since we can do whatever we want, but he was frustrating me beyond belief, since we needed our points, and were running out of time. I finally called him to the Teeter, which was worth 9 points, and then he ran by a jump that was right there for 10 points, having me turn him around yet again, but he did get over it and to the finish line on time.
In the end, we got barely got our Q, with just 1 point over the requirement, and 0.11 seconds under the course time! This was our last needed Open FAST Q though, so Philip got his title and will be moving up to Excellent A FAST next weekend!
The weather cleared up by Sunday though, so we were on for our 3 runs. First up was Standard, and Philip did a pretty good job, except being sucked onto the Teeter at the very beginning, earning himself a wrong course. He also stopped before getting up on the table, though I heard that another dog had peed on it earlier, so that might have been why.
The jumpers course was set up with a very tricky beginning - there were 3 jumps straight out, but the dogs had to only take 2 of them, and then take a sharp U-turn into a tunnel. I managed to turn Philip away from the 3rd jump, but he didn't turn far enough and went for a different jump out to the right instead of the tunnel. He also ended up knocking the 2nd jump bar, and then another later.
So we got two NQs in those runs and had quite a while to wait before our FAST run, which was the last thing of the day. This trial was taking place as part of a bigger dog show, so I went to see the pretty doggies during the break. Philip got quite a bit attention there since he was all muddy (I let him romp in some slush after the runs) - everyone commented on how much fun he must have had that morning :) Unfortunately, I forgot to grab my camera, so no pictures of pretty dogs for you guys, but I saw one super weird dog. It was called a Bergamasco, and you guys should totally look it up, such a strange looking dog!
Anyway, back to Agility. We finally got to run FAST around 3pm (ugh!), and I thought it'd be easy as always, however Philip had gone completely out the window! We began with a tire into the weave poles, which he messed up, and I didn't bother fixing. So we ran ahead to the Send Bonus which included a jump, an A-Frame, and a tunnel. Well usually we have no problem with these things, but Philip just would not go to the jump! I was flabbergasted. Finally he went over it after me taking him in circles for the 3rd time, and he easily did the other two obstacles of the Send. After that I wanted him to turn left, but he totally ignored me and ran straight ahead. It's no big deal in FAST since we can do whatever we want, but he was frustrating me beyond belief, since we needed our points, and were running out of time. I finally called him to the Teeter, which was worth 9 points, and then he ran by a jump that was right there for 10 points, having me turn him around yet again, but he did get over it and to the finish line on time.
In the end, we got barely got our Q, with just 1 point over the requirement, and 0.11 seconds under the course time! This was our last needed Open FAST Q though, so Philip got his title and will be moving up to Excellent A FAST next weekend!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
February AKC Trial 1
We went to our first AKC trial of the year this past weekend. I can't believe I didn't make it to any AKC trials until now. No worries though, we have quite a few coming up in the next months :)
AKC has recently come up with a new Agility class called Time 2 Beat (T2B for short). I'll touch on it more in a separate post later, but it will be officially starting on July 1st. Our local trial secretary is very excited to start putting it on, but consequently that means that they'll mostly stop offering FAST once they get T2B going. To let us FAST-fanatics get our fill of it before it's gone though, they are offering it a lot more up until July, so Philip and I are going to try and get our Excellent FAST title before it disappears. Anyway, you are going to see a lot more FAST on this blog in the next few months!
So, on to our trial... Saturday started off with Excellent A Standard, which was a fairly tricky course, and Philip had the case of crazies on it, forgetting who I was or what I wanted :) It's really frustrating when he does this (which seems to be pretty often recently), but at the same time it's pretty hilarious to watch him go insane too.
The Excellent B JWW run was much better though. I had my well-behaved Philip back, and the course had a great flow, so he listened well and completed the course with a Q. This was our first Q in Excellent B and we earned our first MACH points! Philip was in 7th place and earned 12 MACH points in the run - not bad at all!
We had to wait a very long time for our Open FAST run, and the weather was warming up, plus I wasn't feeling so well, but we stuck it out, determined to get our Qs before July :) Philip is generally very good at FAST so far (he's only NQed once in it, and that was because the course was full of mud due to rain, and he couldn't run), so I never stress those runs. The Send Bonus was pretty interesting being set up kind of in a middle of the course with a jump into a tunnel, but it was no problem for Philip. He ran great, we got a total of 71 points and took 2nd place. The first place went to an awesome little Papillon, that dog ran like the wind! This was our second Q in Open FAST, so just one more to go before moving up to Excellent.
Sunday wasn't nearly as good of a day for us, as Philip was back to his crazy self again. On the Standard course, he indulged in his tunnel love, taking each in the wrong direction, and then getting a double dose when I fixed him to go the correct way. He also messed up the weaves and totally skipped the two-on-two-off on the contacts - sigh!
The Jumpers course seems to always go better for us recently, but unfortunately Philip knocked down the very first jump bar, which was disappointing. He also took a wrong course at the very end, but that was probably because I didn't really care at that point and wasn't paying as much attention as I should have.
Oh well, the two Qs on Saturday were still a fairly good outcome for the weekend. Our next trial is in two weeks and we'll have FAST both days, so we should have some Qs there too :)
AKC has recently come up with a new Agility class called Time 2 Beat (T2B for short). I'll touch on it more in a separate post later, but it will be officially starting on July 1st. Our local trial secretary is very excited to start putting it on, but consequently that means that they'll mostly stop offering FAST once they get T2B going. To let us FAST-fanatics get our fill of it before it's gone though, they are offering it a lot more up until July, so Philip and I are going to try and get our Excellent FAST title before it disappears. Anyway, you are going to see a lot more FAST on this blog in the next few months!
So, on to our trial... Saturday started off with Excellent A Standard, which was a fairly tricky course, and Philip had the case of crazies on it, forgetting who I was or what I wanted :) It's really frustrating when he does this (which seems to be pretty often recently), but at the same time it's pretty hilarious to watch him go insane too.
The Excellent B JWW run was much better though. I had my well-behaved Philip back, and the course had a great flow, so he listened well and completed the course with a Q. This was our first Q in Excellent B and we earned our first MACH points! Philip was in 7th place and earned 12 MACH points in the run - not bad at all!
We had to wait a very long time for our Open FAST run, and the weather was warming up, plus I wasn't feeling so well, but we stuck it out, determined to get our Qs before July :) Philip is generally very good at FAST so far (he's only NQed once in it, and that was because the course was full of mud due to rain, and he couldn't run), so I never stress those runs. The Send Bonus was pretty interesting being set up kind of in a middle of the course with a jump into a tunnel, but it was no problem for Philip. He ran great, we got a total of 71 points and took 2nd place. The first place went to an awesome little Papillon, that dog ran like the wind! This was our second Q in Open FAST, so just one more to go before moving up to Excellent.
Sunday wasn't nearly as good of a day for us, as Philip was back to his crazy self again. On the Standard course, he indulged in his tunnel love, taking each in the wrong direction, and then getting a double dose when I fixed him to go the correct way. He also messed up the weaves and totally skipped the two-on-two-off on the contacts - sigh!
The Jumpers course seems to always go better for us recently, but unfortunately Philip knocked down the very first jump bar, which was disappointing. He also took a wrong course at the very end, but that was probably because I didn't really care at that point and wasn't paying as much attention as I should have.
Oh well, the two Qs on Saturday were still a fairly good outcome for the weekend. Our next trial is in two weeks and we'll have FAST both days, so we should have some Qs there too :)
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
January USDAA Trial
Hi guys, sorry I've been kind of MIA recently. I got super busy over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and had little time for blogging or even Agility itself. We did attend a couple of trials in December that I haven't written about, but I'll back-post them when I have a chance. In quick overview though, Philip bombed most runs and got only one Q in Open FAST over both weekends.
We are in a New Year though, and this last weekend we got attended a USDAA trial. I had taken Philip out of classes for a few week over the holidays, but managed to get one in right before the trial to get him warmed up. Still, his lack of practice was prevalent at the trial. Plus, as I've mentioned before, Philip runs 12" at USDAA, and while some dogs take to jump changes with ease, Philip is not so fond of it...
We ran Advanced Standard, Starters Gamblers, and Starters Jumpers on Saturday. The Standard run was really good, except for the fact that Philip decided to knock second to last bar! It's pretty upsetting having a stupid error like that at the end of the run, but I brushed it off as Philip getting used to the higher jumps. He also messed up his Weave entry, but that wouldn't have counted against us at this level.
Gamblers run had a nice set up, with what I thought was a pretty easy gamble portion. Philip had a good start doing everything as I asked, but half way through the opening the judged stopped us - apparently the timer had malfunctioned and we had to start over. So back to the start line we went, and again did the same routine. We managed to gather quite a few points with no issues again, and then Philip did the gamble beautifully. I was ready to cheer as he flew over the last jump, but in a split second all hopes were shattered as the bar went fumbling to the ground :( That was pretty sad, and even the judge chuckled that "it must've been an earthquake".
Jumpers run seemed a bit tough for a Starters course, and I felt bad for the beginners to trialing. I knew Philip shouldn't have trouble though, so didn't worry too much. The bar knocking gods were not on our side though. Philip knocked two right at the beginning. Beautiful run otherwise, but oh well.
On Sunday we had another shot as Advanced Standard, followed by Starters Snooker and Starters Pairs. The Standard run wasn't too exciting as it ended up with two knocked bars again - one at the start and another towards the end.
The Snooker course looked a bit challenging, and I was a little discouraged by that and the constant NQs over the weekend, so I came up with a plan, walked it and figure that it'll be whatever it'll be. Funny how that works, but the time when you don't really expect much are usually when you have good runs. Such was the case this time too. Philip paid perfect attention to my direction, took the course as I planned, and most importantly kept all the bars up! We had a beautiful run with a total of 46 points, a Q, and a first place. The judge cheered for us exclaiming "no bars!" :)
Last up was a Pairs run. Our usual partner in crime Willis was unavailable this day, so we had a new partner - a Bichon Frise names Travis. Travis is new to Agility and this was his first USDAA trial. He is such a cute little guy though, and has so much fun on the ring! We split up the course for him to take the first half of the course which was a little shorter and easier (8 obstacles, mostly jumps). Philip and I took the second half (10 obstacle with contact equipment). Travis's owner was a little worried that she wouldn't be able to catch him after their half, but I encouraged her to try. Travis must've gotten bored waiting for this run, and when he got to the ring, he had the cutest case of zoomies ever! He ran and ran around the ring, and I just giggled waiting for them :) He got back on track eventually and finished his half, then we did ours, complete with a knocked jump bar even! Of course all the running around and the knocked bar NQed our run, but it was so much fun, so I thought it was a good end to the weekend :)
So there you have it. Overall, Philip paid really good attention to me the whole weekend, which was a bit unexpected, but very pleasant. I really hope this trend stays for the upcoming AKC trials! The 12" jumps really killed him though with all those knocked bars. If it wasn't for the bars, we'd have almost all Qs. Oh well, we'll take the one Q we got, and actually it's a really big one as it finished our Agility Dog title, so Philip can move up to Advanced Games next time :)
We have quite a few trials coming up, so stay tuned for more of our adventures!
We are in a New Year though, and this last weekend we got attended a USDAA trial. I had taken Philip out of classes for a few week over the holidays, but managed to get one in right before the trial to get him warmed up. Still, his lack of practice was prevalent at the trial. Plus, as I've mentioned before, Philip runs 12" at USDAA, and while some dogs take to jump changes with ease, Philip is not so fond of it...
We ran Advanced Standard, Starters Gamblers, and Starters Jumpers on Saturday. The Standard run was really good, except for the fact that Philip decided to knock second to last bar! It's pretty upsetting having a stupid error like that at the end of the run, but I brushed it off as Philip getting used to the higher jumps. He also messed up his Weave entry, but that wouldn't have counted against us at this level.
Gamblers run had a nice set up, with what I thought was a pretty easy gamble portion. Philip had a good start doing everything as I asked, but half way through the opening the judged stopped us - apparently the timer had malfunctioned and we had to start over. So back to the start line we went, and again did the same routine. We managed to gather quite a few points with no issues again, and then Philip did the gamble beautifully. I was ready to cheer as he flew over the last jump, but in a split second all hopes were shattered as the bar went fumbling to the ground :( That was pretty sad, and even the judge chuckled that "it must've been an earthquake".
Jumpers run seemed a bit tough for a Starters course, and I felt bad for the beginners to trialing. I knew Philip shouldn't have trouble though, so didn't worry too much. The bar knocking gods were not on our side though. Philip knocked two right at the beginning. Beautiful run otherwise, but oh well.
On Sunday we had another shot as Advanced Standard, followed by Starters Snooker and Starters Pairs. The Standard run wasn't too exciting as it ended up with two knocked bars again - one at the start and another towards the end.
The Snooker course looked a bit challenging, and I was a little discouraged by that and the constant NQs over the weekend, so I came up with a plan, walked it and figure that it'll be whatever it'll be. Funny how that works, but the time when you don't really expect much are usually when you have good runs. Such was the case this time too. Philip paid perfect attention to my direction, took the course as I planned, and most importantly kept all the bars up! We had a beautiful run with a total of 46 points, a Q, and a first place. The judge cheered for us exclaiming "no bars!" :)
Last up was a Pairs run. Our usual partner in crime Willis was unavailable this day, so we had a new partner - a Bichon Frise names Travis. Travis is new to Agility and this was his first USDAA trial. He is such a cute little guy though, and has so much fun on the ring! We split up the course for him to take the first half of the course which was a little shorter and easier (8 obstacles, mostly jumps). Philip and I took the second half (10 obstacle with contact equipment). Travis's owner was a little worried that she wouldn't be able to catch him after their half, but I encouraged her to try. Travis must've gotten bored waiting for this run, and when he got to the ring, he had the cutest case of zoomies ever! He ran and ran around the ring, and I just giggled waiting for them :) He got back on track eventually and finished his half, then we did ours, complete with a knocked jump bar even! Of course all the running around and the knocked bar NQed our run, but it was so much fun, so I thought it was a good end to the weekend :)
So there you have it. Overall, Philip paid really good attention to me the whole weekend, which was a bit unexpected, but very pleasant. I really hope this trend stays for the upcoming AKC trials! The 12" jumps really killed him though with all those knocked bars. If it wasn't for the bars, we'd have almost all Qs. Oh well, we'll take the one Q we got, and actually it's a really big one as it finished our Agility Dog title, so Philip can move up to Advanced Games next time :)
We have quite a few trials coming up, so stay tuned for more of our adventures!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
End of Year Summary
With 2010 coming to an end, Philip and I have now been going to Agility trials for a year, so let's look at how we did!
We attended 15 AKC trials and 2 USDAA trials.
Philip has his Excellent Agility Jumper, Open Agility, and Novice FAST titles in AKC, giving him a fancy name of Crysmont Philip AXJ OA NF
Philip also has his Starters Standard Agility title in USDAA.
Finally, here's the total of the different runs we've done and Qs we've gotten this year.
USDAA:
AKC:
I'm looking forward to Philip's runs in the new year, Happy New Year everyone!
We attended 15 AKC trials and 2 USDAA trials.
Philip has his Excellent Agility Jumper, Open Agility, and Novice FAST titles in AKC, giving him a fancy name of Crysmont Philip AXJ OA NF
Philip also has his Starters Standard Agility title in USDAA.
Finally, here's the total of the different runs we've done and Qs we've gotten this year.
USDAA:
AKC:
I'm looking forward to Philip's runs in the new year, Happy New Year everyone!
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