Happy belated Memorial Day! I hope you had as good a weekend as we did. We had good (although hot) weather, time with family and a great day at our first trial in over a month.
The setup at Muddy Paws Canine Center suited us very well.
The ring was in an indoor arena on dirt. The dirt was harder packed than I had anticipated, but it felt fine underfoot for both me and Jonah. The space was not especially big -- 60 x 100ft -- and it always felt like we were approaching a wall. The obstacles were close together and there wasn't much room for getting going at full speed, but none of that seemed to bother Jonah.
One of the nice things about the setup was that dogs got to wait outside of the building. This meant there was plenty of space and Jonah never felt trapped against a wall while other dogs were going in and out. It made my life a lot less stressful, too. I think he only barked at one dog all day, and it just waltzed up to us while we were in the practice area, which was not separated off in any way. Oh well. Anyway, reactivity was never a significant problem at this trial, and it was great not to have to worry about it.
Dave picked out a nice small shade tent for us on Friday night, and it worked great. There were large designated camping spots where we could park our car and set up our tent. We got to spend the day sitting in our folding chairs in the shade, reading and just enjoying the lovely weather.
As I mentioned, it was hot. A lot of the dogs were slowing down and looking generally unenthused. I decided to shorten our usual warmup routine, cut out the running, and just have Jonah pop over the warmup jump a few times. It seemed to work very well. Each time I got him up, he was perky and ready to run.
As for the agility itself, it went great, too!
Round 1: Jackpot Level 3
I had anticipated that this could be a difficult challenge for us, and I was right. We had a lovely opening where Jonah was a little bit aware of his surroundings but generally happy. I think we had 51 points in the opening? It was a lot, anyway. We were in a good spot when the whistle blew, but the jackpot proved too difficult. It was a far-side tunnel entry to a line of jumps. Jonah really just didn't understand why he should go all the way to the far side of the tunnel. We tried a couple times, and then I just headed for the jumps. He did the jumps at distance spectacularly. That helped me be really positive with him even though it was an NQ. That last line of jumps was fast, confident and generally perfectly textbook. We'll have to work on tunnel entries, but I knew I hadn't put in the work to expect him to get it. Overall, it was a good first run where Jonah was happy to run, did all the obstacles confidently, and he did a beautiful line of jumps at distance, even if he didn't qualify. The Q rate was less than 10%, so we weren't the only ones, and we still got a nice red ribbon.
Round 2: Standard Level 2
I think this was one of the best rounds we've ever had. It wasn't a hard course, but Jonah was focused and confident the whole time. His A-frame could have been a little faster, but otherwise I don't have much to critique. I was pleased with his weaves, as I thought it was a tough entry to have a fast line of jumps to a sharp turn with not a lot of room. He didn't blink an eye. Jonah was the fastest dog on the course, good boy. Rather than write about it, I'll just let you look at the round yourself. Blogger isn't letting me upload directly, so I'll just link you to YouTube. Thanks to Dave for filming!
The setup at Muddy Paws Canine Center suited us very well.
The ring was in an indoor arena on dirt. The dirt was harder packed than I had anticipated, but it felt fine underfoot for both me and Jonah. The space was not especially big -- 60 x 100ft -- and it always felt like we were approaching a wall. The obstacles were close together and there wasn't much room for getting going at full speed, but none of that seemed to bother Jonah.
One of the nice things about the setup was that dogs got to wait outside of the building. This meant there was plenty of space and Jonah never felt trapped against a wall while other dogs were going in and out. It made my life a lot less stressful, too. I think he only barked at one dog all day, and it just waltzed up to us while we were in the practice area, which was not separated off in any way. Oh well. Anyway, reactivity was never a significant problem at this trial, and it was great not to have to worry about it.
Dave picked out a nice small shade tent for us on Friday night, and it worked great. There were large designated camping spots where we could park our car and set up our tent. We got to spend the day sitting in our folding chairs in the shade, reading and just enjoying the lovely weather.
As I mentioned, it was hot. A lot of the dogs were slowing down and looking generally unenthused. I decided to shorten our usual warmup routine, cut out the running, and just have Jonah pop over the warmup jump a few times. It seemed to work very well. Each time I got him up, he was perky and ready to run.
As for the agility itself, it went great, too!
Round 1: Jackpot Level 3
I had anticipated that this could be a difficult challenge for us, and I was right. We had a lovely opening where Jonah was a little bit aware of his surroundings but generally happy. I think we had 51 points in the opening? It was a lot, anyway. We were in a good spot when the whistle blew, but the jackpot proved too difficult. It was a far-side tunnel entry to a line of jumps. Jonah really just didn't understand why he should go all the way to the far side of the tunnel. We tried a couple times, and then I just headed for the jumps. He did the jumps at distance spectacularly. That helped me be really positive with him even though it was an NQ. That last line of jumps was fast, confident and generally perfectly textbook. We'll have to work on tunnel entries, but I knew I hadn't put in the work to expect him to get it. Overall, it was a good first run where Jonah was happy to run, did all the obstacles confidently, and he did a beautiful line of jumps at distance, even if he didn't qualify. The Q rate was less than 10%, so we weren't the only ones, and we still got a nice red ribbon.
Round 2: Standard Level 2
I think this was one of the best rounds we've ever had. It wasn't a hard course, but Jonah was focused and confident the whole time. His A-frame could have been a little faster, but otherwise I don't have much to critique. I was pleased with his weaves, as I thought it was a tough entry to have a fast line of jumps to a sharp turn with not a lot of room. He didn't blink an eye. Jonah was the fastest dog on the course, good boy. Rather than write about it, I'll just let you look at the round yourself. Blogger isn't letting me upload directly, so I'll just link you to YouTube. Thanks to Dave for filming!
Round 3: Snooker Level 3
I thought I picked a reasonably flowing course, but there was still a fair amount of tight turning, and he got a little distracted going into the yellow tunnel the third time. After that, though, he picked things back up. The course was 1-3 (yellow tunnel), 1-6 (purple tunnel), 1-7 (jump to yellow tunnel). I was pleased with his far side tunnel in the closing, after our incident in Jackpot. Overall it was not our most motivated course, but we got 46 points, which was enough for 1st and a Q. Only two dogs in level C got more points. One person got 51, and I wish I had seen it, because it was not a friendly course for such a goal! Here's the link:
Round 4: Colors Level 2
I was worried Jonah wouldn't have much gas left at the end of a long, hot day, but this course was nice and smooth. It was pretty easy, but that's fine. Our 12 second time was good enough for 1st and Q. There was one other 12 second run, but the dog dropped a bar. There wasn't electronic timing at this trial, which was a first for us. I guess it was never really an issue, though.
Now we just need one more Standard Level 2 run to get our level 2 title. We're starting to make some progress on our Level 3 Q's, too. It's so much fun to run Jonah when he's happy and fast. I think we're going to have a lot of great trials ahead of us. We have three weekends off and then we'll be at Bo-Gee for two days. I can't wait!
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