The Weekend Report: Wish I'd caught it on Camera!

This weekend was our last summer season agility trial. It was given by the Carrol Kennel Club in the usual indoor soccer building. The courses were particularly challenging this time and luckily we had success three out of four times.

On Saturday, it started with the jumpers run. This was probably the easiest of the courses, but it did have some subtle spots that it was very hard to get where you needed to be to set a nice line. Jimmy was a speedy guy (as he always is!) and we got it done! It netted us the blue ribbon as well. It was the only run I got on video and here it is:




The standard run came next. The #5 jump to the #6 tunnel was going to be a challenge. As they cleared the jump, they were looking straight into the wrong end of the tunnel. I clapped, I screamed Jimmy's name, but he had locked on to the wrong end and nothing was going to stop him. Sigh. As it turned out, he had also blown his dogwalk contact just before the #5 jump, so the tunnel error really didn't matter. We had already NQ'd. I thought I had seen a flying leap out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn't sure until I saw my score sheet at the end. No double Q for us!

The maps:

Sunday was just as tricky. It again started with jumpers and if you made it through #1 through #6 successfully, you had a good shot at Q'ing. I tried my friend's suggestion on how to handle  3 to 4 to 5 (Thanks, Gretchen!) and it worked beautifully! This time we got the correct end of the tunnel and the rest ran clean! We got another blue ribbon for our good efforts.

Our Sunday standard run was the one I truly wish I had video'd. I had the most amazing call-off of a wrong obstacle and then successfully got the weave pole entry from a very odd angle as a result of the call-off. If you look at the map (the one on the right down below), we were running A-frame (#7) to jump (#8), to jump (#9) and then the weaves at #10. However, Jimmy was positive the course should run #8, to #9, to#18, a jump to the right of the weaves. I screamed NO!!!! and he stopped in his tracks (almost in take-off mode to clear the jump), made a sharp left and then a hard right into the CORRECT weave pole entry. Amazing save! Eleven through 16 was a challenge for many but we made it through to the end! YAY! This was double-Q #13 toward our big PACH title. Plus we earned lots of points toward our AKC Nationals tally. For this run we did not get the blue ribbon.....we earned 2nd place this time as Jimmy was beat by a girl! A little Pemmie girl who is every bit as fast as Jimmy and does a smoking fast dogwalk!

Here are Sunday's maps so you can see what all those numbers mean....

Currently I keep all these pretty ribbons, but when the day comes to downsize all the junk in my house, I guess they will have to go. I'll have to settle for photographic proof of Jimmy's accomplishments.

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 23...MJP Title 01/25/15
Masters STD legs: 23...MXP Title!10/24/14
Double Q's: 13
PACH Points: 1055

AKC Nationals 2016:
Double-Q's: 6 (out of 5 needed)
Points: 537 (out of 600 needed)....
Masters Legs: 24 (out of 20 needed)