Compitition Class

The next session of competition class started last night. The class meets at 8:30, which is later then I am used to for class. There are only 2 handlers (3 dogs in the class) Last night we had the course that was set up for AKC Nationals last year.

Clover ran the course very well except for the weave poles. There was a 180 degree turn after 2 straight jumps into the weave poles and Clover wasn't able to make the turn the first couple of times, but after we did a couple of times she was able to make the turn. It is frustrating that Clover is good enough to do a National level course, but won't do weave poles effectively.

Moore County Kennel Club AKC Trial Results

This Sunday we attended the Moore County Kennel Club trial at Sanford. I didn't register for Saturday, which turned out well because of Clover limping on Wednesday. We did take her for a five of mile hike at the Roanoke Rapids Canal.

We got to Sanford about 9:00 am but still had to wait about an hour before our first run. Our first run was the jumpers run. It was a good run, except I could not get Clover to do the weave poles at all. We finally gave up, so we didn't qualify. Everyone who has ever seen her run in practice is baffled at why she will not do weaves in competition.

The second run, the standard run was much better. I got her to do a stay on the A frame down contact and I only had to restart her 2 times on the weave poles. we had no point deductions and she ran it in 49.26 seconds. The standard course time was 69 seconds. It was a 132 yard course. We placed second in the class. She did rush the teeter and a-frame contact a little though.

A couple of trials ago I switched Clover to performance, so I had to start again from the beginning, which means we are still running Novice. I am glad we are running novice because I don't think there is anyway should could complete 12 weave poles in competition. Today's qualifying means we can move up to open performance, but I think I will stay in novice until we get weave poles figured out.

Favoring a Leg

We didn't have class this week because Michele had so many signed up for competition agility class that she split it into 2 class and rescheduled me for Monday nights. I have been running clover a lot at home.

Last night I took clover to Course of the week, on her first run she seemed to be favoring her front left leg. It was a slight limp, I don't think it is anything serious and I have no idea how she injured it, but I didn't want to take any chances and cut the evening short. The little we did run, she seemed to be doing the weaves well.

We have an agility trial in Sanford this weekend. I only signed up to compete on Sunday, so I may take clover to teamworks on Saturday to verify that she is Ok to compete.

COW and Kira's much better

Kira is feeling much better now. It seems that once she gets sick it takes a couple of days for her to be able to eat normally with out gagging and throwing back up.

Last night I set up and ran Course of the week for teamworks. Scott Glaser was suppose to help me but didn't show up. There are a bunch of trials coming up so there were a lot of people that came out to run their dogs. So i was pretty busy all night and didn't get much of an opportunity to run clover until everyone went home. Her weave poles weren't the greatest.

There was also a Youngsville agility meeting. I was nominated to the board again and we made plans for upcoming trial.

Dog Agility Course Walkthrough

I didn't do to much this weekend with Clover, My wife is overseas and her dog, Kira has been sick. I took her to the vet this morning, She has been throwing up and looks dehydrated. I will keep you posted on how she is doing. For more on Kira's health history, click here.

I did rent the sand ring at Teamworks on Saturday and ran the course. It was pretty much the same course we had set up for COW. We only stayed out about 1/2 hour and we worked on mostly weave poles. She did great.

Here is a neat video I found of a Novice Agility walk through. If you have never ran a course before or want to know some things to consider when doing a walk through, this video is worth taking a look at...

Working at Course of the week

Last night some of the regular people who help run Course of the Week were gone so I helped fill in by helping setup the course and collecting money. We set up an elite AKC regular course with lots of tunnels on the side, which we made into a novice run. Clover did fairly well. She at least did pretty well on the weave poles. I didn't run her to hard, since I was pretty tired. I wish she would perform this well at trials. Below is a picture taken of the tunnelers run on sunday. This was where we almost collided.

AARF NADAC Trial Results October 7-8, 2006

Sunday was a little nicer day. At least I didn't have to wear my rain suit. It was still pretty cloudy. Clover's first run of the day was a jumpers run. Like most of her Elite jumpers run, it was a very good run.



The second run of the day was an Elite Tunnelers run. Clover did very good in this run also and qualified, although we practically had a collision as she came out of tunnel number 10 going to 11.


The third run during the day was a chances run. For those of you who are not familiar with chances, you have 3 challenges, discrimination (teeter tunnel) direction (change of direction at chump 4 and 5) and distance (jumps 11 through 15) if you are in novice, you have one challenge, in open, 2 challenges and in elite 3 challenges. All challenges have to be completed at a distance, behind the line. I thought we had a chance at this one because Clover has pretty good distance control, but for the first challenge, I had her do her 2 on 2 off on the teeter contact and she got anxious and actually went backwards through the tunnel after the teeter and going off course. The rest of the run went down hill there. I was never able to get her back to do the 4 and 5 jump--the directional challenge. I also wasn't able to push her out far enough to do the 11 jump. She took the 9 jump.



The regular runs, I hate to say went about the same as yesterday, no weaves and rushed contacts. She didn't miss any contacts but they were a little rushed for my liking.



The last run of the day was a novice touch and go run. Clover blew her contact the second time on the A frame so we didn't Q.



Overall the trial ran very smoothly although I was disappointed in Clover's performance especially in the weave poles and contacts. But that is starting to sound like a broke record.

Here are the Clover's official results...

I stayed around until most everything was cleaned up and I ended up leaving about 6:30. We had to carry all the NADAC contacts back up to the grass ring, take tents down and clean up. Oh, I forgot to mention that the judge for the trial was Sandra Katzen from Washington State.

Hey, if you have any idea on how I can manage one excited terv, let me Know!

A successful NADAC Agility Trial --Saturday

This weekend's agility trial can be considered a success, even though it was misting, and raining all weekend. I served as Chief Course Builder. Luckily, it was only a one ring trial. We orgiinally were going to hold it in the grass ring but moved to the sand ring, which works much better in the rain-- since the grass ring turns to mud. The trial wasn't full but we did have close to 300 runs each day or around 70 exhibitors.

I went to Teamworks on Friday night after work to help set up but they pretty much had everything done. I did help set up the first course of the trial, the elite jumpers course.


Saturday's weather was not plesant, fortunately it wasn't very cold but very misty and rainy. Luckily, I purchased a rain suit on friday that I put it to good use.

Clovers first run of the trial was an Elite Chances run. We Qualified on this run.



The next course Clover ran were the Open regular 1 & 2 runs. I thought maybe Clover would be ready to tackle 12 weave poles but after these two runs, I decided that I will run her in novice regular the rest of the year. She still just gets to anxious to complete the weave poles properly. Usually I can at least calm her down by having her focus on me, by looking at me, but she would only look at the weave poles. She didn't do to badly on the on the contacts, but she still rushes. She at least stops.



The next run was a tunnelers. Clover is in the elite class in tunnelers and usually does pretty well. Unfotunatly, I was a little late in giving the cammand and clover didn't make the turn from tunnel 5 to 6 and went straight to tunnel 10.



The last run on Saturday was a jumpers run. Clover is very consistant with jumpers and she did very well and only placed .4 sec behind, Cree, michele's (my instructor) dog. Clover ran it flawlessly and had a great time.



I withdrew Clover from the weavers run since she did so poorly on the weaves in the standard run.

I was sort of disappointed with clovers performance in the weave poles. I was giving her a break to see if that would help her, but I am going to have to hit them hard in the next couple of weeks.

Looks like a soggy trial

The weather for course of the week Wednesday was gorgeous, unlike the downpour we are getting now! This was the first course of the week that I helped host since I broke my collar bone. There were about 12 people there and it went well. There was a little more setting up than usual because all the equipment for the grass ring was moved because they mowed. We also flipped the A-frame to the slatless side, since NADAC uses the slatless.

This was the first Wednesday of the month so we did a jumpers course. It was a fun course and Clover did very well. She did "OK" on the weaves in the sand ring. She took them great one way but not the other.

I have to head out now. I am serving as Chief course builder for the AARF trial this weekend and we are setting up tonight. As I mentioned, it is raining pretty hard so it looks like it will be a cold and soggy trial.

F.A.S.T Class in Class

Congratulations to Michele Godlevski and Cree! They earned 3 double Q's at the Columbia AKC trial this past weekend! This was a trial I wish I would have attended. I wasn't able to get there because I tried to get into the one at Durham, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't get in and it was to late to enter the Columbia trial. I still have to figure out the science behind registering and getting into trials.

Last night Clover and I attended the last competition class of this series. We worked on F.A.S.T class. At the trial in Columbia they did a F.A.S.T class demo which Michele took part in and learned more about the rules. Unlike last week, this week we actually timed and scored the runs. Ray was amazing with her two dogs and was able to get close to the full 80 points on every run. I was very pleased with Clover because we always scored above 60 points, which is qualifying. (Ok, not always, she blew the weave distance on the last run)

We ran the same course 3 times. Although each time we had a different distance challenge, the first was just tunnel and jump, the second was jump, shoot, tunnel and the third was tunnel, 12 weavepoles and jump. We didn't get the last distance challenge because I crossed the line and had to restart Clover on the weaves.

I was very happy with clover though. The first 2 times she saw the weaves she did them flawlessly. This was in the sand ring. I was very happy.

After class, I went into the grass ring and worked with clover. We did the weave poles about 10 times and she didn't miss them once!

Tonight will be my first time back to hosting Course of The Week since I broke my Collar bone. I am going to make a point of flipping the A-Frame to the non-slatted side which NADAC uses. Clover seems to be leary of the slatless A-frame and I want to make her comfortable before the upcoming ARFF trial coming up at Teamworks this weekend.