The Weekend Report: Lions and Tigers and BEARS, Oh My!

This weekend, Jimmy and I were back at the farm out in Reva, Virginia. The weather forecast was for "occassional"  rain on Saturday, but mostly just overcast. Well, occasional turned into "steady" rain. There were lots of muddy dogs and cars by the end of the day!

At the start of each class, there is a judge's briefing. They go over the safety rules each time, ask if anyone sees any course design that might be too risky to the dogs, etc. This is also the time when the dog club that is hosting the trial has a chance to give announcements. This weekend they wanted us to know of a few "Don'ts".....Such as..."If the animal isn't yours, don't feed it!" There are horses and a couple of pet pigs close by, and it seems the pigs were sick from all the snacks they received at the last trial. Oops!

Here are those cute little piggies....pretty hard to resist.....When you stop by the stall to say Hi, they run over squealing and wagging their little piggy tails just like a dog. Freaking adorable! This variety only gets to about 50 pounds, so a really good pet size.

Lula and Dixie

My hand is added for scale.

The next Don't was "Don't walk your dogs along the treeline next to the barn, or on the hills behind the barn" and this was because a family of black bears had moved in....A momma and two cubs plus her yearling from the previous year. Unfortunately I didn't see this, but the yearling was spotted moseying through the field where we all park our cars (but not too close, at the back of the field) and then tried to cross one of the horse paddocks. He was quickly run out of town by the resident horses! LOL!

Fortunately, the rain (and the bears!) did not effect our success level! The judges designed some very fun and flowing courses that were really fairly easy.

Here are Saturday's maps:

Jimmy qualified in both runs, pulling off Double-Q #17 toward our PACH title.

This club gives very pretty ribbons!

Sunday was a much cooler and beautifully sunny day. You could see many of the dogs were feeling extra "up" for the event, loving cool temps as they do.

Jumpers was our first run of the day. It was a lot of fun and Jimmy did a great job, earning first place! For the Standard run, it was a dogwalk to the tunnel, which I knew from past experience would be our make or break moment. Unfortunately, it was a break, totally my fault due to a bad handling decision causing Jimmy to blow his dogwalk contact (the yellow zone at the bottom of the down plank).  The rest was fast and furious and, of course, clean! Oh, well, no double-q for Sunday. We need three more to get our title and are down to just two more trial days this year so the PACH will be waiting for the spring trials.

Sunday's maps:

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 29...MJP Title 01/25/15 MJPB 10/11/15
Masters STD legs: 28...MXP Title!10/24/14 MXPB 10/11/15
Double Q's: 17
PACH Points: 1299

AKC Nationals 2016:
Double-Q's: 10 (out of 5 needed)
Points: 781 (out of 600 needed)....We QUALIFIED!!! 10/11/15
Masters Legs: 35 (out of 20 needed)

The Weekend Report: Wow, What a Weekend!

Jimmy and I were back to having fun competing in agility this past weekend. It was at the beautiful farm out in Reva, Virgina and the weather could not have been any more perfect! Beautiful fall days with lots of sunshine and the trees just beginning to put on their end of year show. Just being in the country for two days with such wonderful conditions was great, but add to that a perfect agility weekend and it doesn't get any better.

It is rare for Jimmy and me to qualify in all of our runs. We just aren't that consistent. But if it is going to happen, it often happens at this location. Jimmy really seems to shine on the dirt flooring. He tends to be a bit slower, but the bars stay up better. I bet being a bit slower also helps to keep other mistakes away as well. What ever be the case, Jimmy and I went 4 for 4 runs this weekend and they were all first place finishes! Woohoo! What a great little guy Jim is!

But that wasn't the end of our accomplishments for the weekend.....

So these were a double-Q each day.....#14 and #15 toward our PACH....just 5 more to go.....

They also earned us two new titles....Jimmy's Masters Jumpers Bronze Preferred and his Masters Standard Bronze Preferred (25 Qs to earn each one.....)

And with the points we earned from these runs, Jimmy is now fully qualified for the 2016 AKC National Agility Championship next March! It's being held in Tulsa, OK, so a very long way off. I don't know for sure that we will go, but now we have the option!

So as my post title says.....Wow, What a Weekend! (that could have been a Wordless Wednesday title!) I didn't get anyone to video us, so I'm afraid you will just have to watch an old video and pretend ;-)

Here are the maps from both days for you agility fanatics out there. Saturday's courses were quite mild and very doable. Sunday's Jumpers course (map on the left, bottom image) ate up and spit out all but four of the 20 and 24 inch dogs. The weave entry got some of them, and if the handler fell too far behind, off-course obstacles got the rest of them! It got better for the smaller dogs as their strides don't carry them so far and it's easier to catch things before a mistake is made.

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 25...MJP Title 01/25/15 MJPB 10/11/15
Masters STD legs: 25...MXP Title!10/24/14 MXPB 10/11/15
Double Q's: 15
PACH Points: 1144

AKC Nationals 2016:
Double-Q's: 8 (out of 5 needed)
Points: 626 (out of 600 needed)....We QUALIFIED!!! 10/11/15
Masters Legs: 28 (out of 20 needed)

The Weekend Report: We Were Gifted on our Season Finale!

This past weekend was Jimmy's and my last show of the season and year. It was at that farm in Reva, Virginia that I love so much. A day in the country is always a good thing, although I must admit Saturday was COLD!!!  As is the case with most agility trials, you need to get an early start. I arrived at about 8:30AM and the temps were still in the high teens (-7 C!!!). This is unusually cold for this time of year. This trial is in a barn which was "warmed" with propane heat blowers. It helped if you stood near them but deeper into the ring was cold. I dressed the part with long underwear and thick sweat pants....layers, layers, layers! I really didn't mind it too much, plus it was sunny, so my car was nice and toasty inside for the dogs.

The first run of the day was Jumpers and we had an odd bobble early on. I don't know what I did wrong, and of course I didn't video again this trial. My friend was watching and couldn't really see what it was either. So we were disqualified early on so I just cheered him loudly and ran fast through the rest.

We took a break to wander the farm and take a few pictures. There was quite a while between my runs. Up in the hills, the wind was blocked and it was very pleasant.

The Standard run was a fun spiral. Not too challenging and it ran fast! Jimmy's dogwalk contact (where at least one paw must hit the yellow contact zone) was a bit iffy, so I consider it a "gift" from the judge. Jimmy earned another 32 points toward his PACH title and a nice first place blue ribbon.. Of course, no double-Q's but that's OK!

Here are the maps.....

Sunday was a way warmer day (oh, the fickle weather of Virginia), but cloudy. Again the early start, with all the appropriate clothing. And again the day started with Jumpers, and again we could not pull it off! This time Jimmy missed his weave entry. I never saw it as a tough one when I walked the course, but I guess it was. Oh, well, if we qualified every single time, what would be the challenge in that.

Another long break brought us to the Standard run. It was a bit trickier than Saturday and was a lot of fun to run. Sometimes you can't tell how a course will run from your walk-thru. This one was great! However, Jimmy hesitated just a bit getting on the table, almost enough for the judge to call a refusal, but she didn't! Thank you, judge, for another "gift" this weekend. Jimmy earned another 29 points and first place!

Maps.....

So we ended the season without anymore double Qs, but that is alright. I don't want this journey to end too quickly.

Tracking Jimmy's PACH progress:
Very 1st Double-Q: Saturday 06/21/2014
Masters JWW legs: 9
Masters STD legs: 13...MXP Title!10/24/14
Double Q's: 7
PACH Points: 518

Another accomplishment was that from Jimmy's new 8 inch jumping class (called Preferred), we completed all of the requirements to qualify for the 2015 AKC National Championship! Now we weren't really trying, not like last year where I was frantic to go, It's in Reno, NV this time, so way too far from home and I would never fly my dog in cargo! The other caveat is a technicality.  Since I didn't earn my MACH until April of this year, Jimmy ran in two jump height during the qualifying period. You can't do that and still qualify, so I really couldn't sign up to go. But we did fulfill  the requirements and we did it quite quickly!

AKC Nationals 2015:
Double-Q's: 7 (out of 4 needed)
Points: 518 (out of 500 needed)....
Masters Legs: 22 (out of 20 needed)