Breeze Thru Agility Trial

Today Jonah and I drove to western MA for two runs at a CPE trial.  He was very good.  I loved the venue (Roaring Brook Farm in Conway, MA).  It was a horse farm and we ran in the indoor.  The footing was a little bit slippery and kind of dusty, but overall it was great.  There was lots of space outside the ring for dogs waiting to go in, and it was a beautiful sunny day outside with lots of space to walk/play with the dogs.  Jonah and I had a great time together in the sun.  We did a bunch of tugging practice that I was very pleased with.

Round 1:  Standard Level 4
This course started pretty straight forward but then had a section of looping back and forth that was generally not motivating.  That sequence looked like this:

Needless to say, this section slowed Jonah down.  I had to do a little cheerleading, and it wasn't the most fun agility we've done.  Anyway, only three dogs ran the course faster than us so even though it felt overall unenthusiastic it wasn't bad.  1st and Q.  Now we're half done with level 4 standard Qs.

Round 2:  Colors Level 4

Jonah was awesome!  He was excited, fast, eager, and confident.  I didn't stick around to see scores, but it was definitely a Q and we got some good compliments.  I was so impressed with him.  It was one of the best runs we've ever had at a trial.  Granted, it was a pretty straight forward course, but still.  We'll take it, especially when overall motivation is probably our biggest challenge at trials these days.  What a star.  I would be really surprised if we didn't win our class, and I doubt many dogs in the trial ran faster.

So, two runs isn't a lot but we got to sleep in and got home in time to do more board practice and have a nice dinner.  Not a bad day!