The Weekend Report: When Good Agility Goes Bad

This past Friday and Saturday was an agility trial at one of our usual indoor locations. I have to say, the courses on Friday, especially Jumpers, were some of the trickiest I've run in a while. Here are the maps and then I'll say why.....

Our first run of the day was Standard, the map on the left. For the most part 1 through 10 was pretty routine. Even the weave pole entry after the chute wasn't too bad, but it was the line after the weaves that took out lots of competitors, including Jimmy and me. 12, 13, 14 and 15 were all angled just oddly enough that it was hard to be where you needed to be to get your dog over the right jump and not miss any. I pretty much trampled poor Jimmy. You can see it in the video.

Jumpers (map on the right) was just plain tough. The 20 inch jump class has the most dogs in it usually and of this large group only TWO were successful. The success rate went up a tiny bit with the smaller dogs, but not for us. We were good until # 12 when Jimmy jumped it correctly the first time but turned right around and back jumped it. My poor handling of course, but it got worse from there. Look at  13 to 14....they jump 13 almost directly into the wrong end of the tunnel and sure enough Jimmy went in the wrong end. Now look at # 15. It's not the side of the jump facing the tunnel exit, but the backside of that jump bar! Holy Moly! While we do practice this in class, Jimmy sailed out of the tunnel (and the wrong end) so fast he was over that jump before I could call him to the back side. At that point my brain was addled and I walked us off.

I've got video of what was very definitely not my finest moments in agility. Don't let it be said I only share the  stuff that makes me look good. These two runs show a clutzy mess. Poor Jimmy deserves better!

Standard:

Jumpers:




But let me add one more comment on Friday. Normally I would have been at work for eight hours, so a day of botched agility courses is still WAY more fun than a day spent working!

Saturday, the courses were much more doable. I don't have the map for Standard as they were all gone by the time I got there. It had a couple of tricky spots but nothing like Friday. My confidence had taken a bit of a beating so I wasn't sure how we would do, but we made it through and managed to redeem ourselves, earning 2nd place!

Jumpers was not bad at all and set up to make you really RUN! Here's the map:

Jimmy hauled through this course! I was really huffing and puffing afterwards. He was fast enough to earn us 1st place!

The fun part about the ribbons is..... a good friend runs Pembroke Corgis (the Queen's corgis)...she just recently moved her girl Twist down to the 8 inch class Jimmy runs in. Twist is every bit as speedy as Jimmy so it's always a guess as to which one will beat the other's time. So in the Standard run, Twist beat Jimmy by about 1/2 of a second, a very close match, earning the 1st place ribbon! Then in Jumpers, Jimmy really turned on the afterburners and beat Twist by about 2 seconds, earning 1st and Twist earning 2nd. Our dogs are very evenly matched in speed so it makes for a fun competition. But I must say, my friend is a MUCH better handler! Those rough courses on Friday? Yea, she and her dogs were successful on both of those!

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 13...MJP Title 01/25/15
Masters STD legs: 16...MXP Title!10/24/14
Double Q's: 9
PACH Points: 678

AKC Nationals 2016:
Double-Q's: 2 (out of 5 needed)
Points: 160 (out of 600 needed)....
Masters Legs: 7 (out of 20 needed)

Ready to Rally.......Not!.....Opinions Please!

So, I've been putzing around with training Rally Obedience to both my guys. I am doing it at home, and just practicing all the basic Novice moves. I don't have the signs set up in a course or such. Wilson has had one class over a year or so ago. Jimmy is brand new to it, has never had a class, but is catching on very quickly!

The reason I started tinkering around with it is 1) it's winter time and it provides the boys with something to do in the evenings, 2) I am toying with entering them in the Rally competition at the CWCCA Nat'l Specialty , and 3) In order to earn the boys their Versatile Cardigan Certificate from the CWCCA, a Rally title should be a reasonably easy way to earn some of the needed points/categories.

This past Sunday, I was signed up for my very first Rally run-thru given by the Capital Dog Training Club. It didn't go as smoothly as I anticipated. Each boy had 2 runs through a Novice level course. Jimmy went first. He had to sit at the very beginning and was confused when I didn't lead out like I would in Agility. He sassed me quite a bit, his heeling was a bit rough, and he jumped up looking for treats. Basically, a bit rowdier than what I see at home. Wilson definitely gave a calmer performance, but also was too treat focused. Obviously, I need to get my food rewards faded out! They are both way too eager for the food! On the second time through, both boys were noticibly calmer/better, but we still had the food issue. For Wilson, I removed my treat apron, and that helped alot. For Jimmy, I only rewarded a couple of times, which seemed to help.

As for me, I had a few questions about how to perform the signs, but wasn't too lost. There was nothing presented that the boys didn't know how to do, although a couple of the signs definitely need more practice such as the exercise where you call your dog front, back one step, front, back two steps, front, back three steps, front. That was definitely ugly!

If you are still reading after all this time, my question to you experienced folks out there is:

Do you think I can get the boys ready for Novice A in time for the Nat'l Specialty at the end of April?

Keep in mind these factors:

All my training will take place at home, maybe finding one more run-thru.

I am not a perfectionist, I just want to qualify.

The entry fees are hefty, I don't want to burn them up for nothing!

And my number one biggest concern is the schedule at the National. Rally starts at 9am and Agility starts at 10am. I am concerned these "almost sure to overlap events" will stress me out too much, degrading my abilities, and therefore degrading what the dogs do.

Entries close on March 28th, so I still have time to practice and decide.