The Weekend Report - The Dirty Dozen! - Plus a word on my recent Giveaway!

Before I launch into reporting on a great weekend of agility, I want to mention that the winner of my giveaway for Jackie's book has never contacted me. I am going to give it through today and if I still haven't heard anything, I'll select a new winner tomorrow, so check back just in case.......

This weekend was three days of agility held by the Shetland Sheepdog Club of Greater Baltimore. It was held in a very nice indoor soccer center in Frederick, Maryland. Not only was it relatively close to home, but Friday and Saturday, the running order was Tall to Small, so it meant I didn't even have to get up at the crack of dawn to be there. And on Sunday, when you are ready to have some time at home, it was Small to Tall and we were headed home by 2PM.

Friday, Jimmy and I pulled off a Double-Q. The courses weren't easy so I was very pleased with our success. Jimmy was even speedy enough on the Standard course to pull in a 3rd place finish, beating out about 40 other 12 inchers. There was a weird incident where one of the judges had what I will call a temper tantrum over ring conflicts. A very strange outburst indeed, and it was quite the talk of the weekend.

Saturday was a no Q day. In the Standard run, I walked out and put Jimmy in his usual Sit/Stay so I could lead out past the first jump. As I was doing it, I thought to myself I didn't like how he was sitting. He was a bit crooked and at a bit of an angle. I didn't want to manhandle him in to a better position as his mood seemed odd, so I let it go. Well, wouldn't you know he crashed the first jump! And of course he ran the rest of it beautifully! So that was totally my fault for not acting on the instinct that was screaming in my head! The Jumpers course a bit later was a tough one. We cruised through the hard stuff, but in the home stretch, Jimmy took out a triple jump. So close.

Sunday, the Standard run got off to a rocky start and I have to give Jimmy credit for saving my bad handling plan. There was a very tough sequence in the middle and we cruised through that and made it to the end cleanly. Our time was a bit long due to my messy start, but, hey, it was a Q! The Jumpers course was either a rear cross extravaganza or a  twirling front cross ballet. I opted for the ballet as it means straighter approaches over the jumps and less chance of taking out a bar. Either way, this course made you RUN! Doing so many front crosses added time to the run but with a double Q on the line, I didn't care. We made it out cleanly! Yay! Two double-Qs for the weekend, WOOHOO! We now have a full one dozen QQs!

Some weekends I just don't feel like bugging anyone with my video camera so no visuals for this trial. However, I will leave you with another very bad pun.......

After three days of agility, I can certainly say......

We were all very TIREd!!!

Tracking Jimmy's MACH progress:
Excellent B JWW legs: 29  Now he's working on his MXJ3!
Excellent B STD legs: 18. We earned our MX and are working on MX2 now.
Double Q's: 12 (out of 20 double-Q's needed for a MACH.... 60 Percent! We're more than halfway there!)
MACH Points: 733 (out of 750 speed points needed for a MACH...... 97 Percent!)

Time 2 Beat legs: 6 (out of 15 needed for his T2B) 48 points (out of 100 needed) 


AKC Nationals 2014:
Double-Q's: 4 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 172 (out of 500 needed)
Masters Legs: 10 (out of 20 needed)