Penny and my first AKC agility trial was this past Sunday (7/11/10). It was so much fun and I was very happy by Penny's performance.
This trial was at the place we do our training, so it was our 'home turf' and it was near by. I think we are going to stay with trials that are very local. Much easier to get there and head home between runs than those that are farther away.
We got there around 7:30. I had to get Penny measured, which she DID NOT like. Need to find a way to get her used to this. I think the issue is that they have her go on the pause/down table to do this and she knows ok I am here I am not supposed to stand. and some odd person she does not know putting this thing on her back. Ugh.
I kept Penny in the back of the Subaru. Need to remember to get a towel or bed for her to lay on. Everyone there had these silver reflective things over their car to help keep out the sun, Need to look into this too. But with the windows open and moonroof open, the car was not too hot. And I kept putting ice in her water bowl, so she had ice cool water whenever she wanted. I went out there a lot to check on her, take her on a stretch/walk, eat a snack and just hang out with her.
So got there at 7:30, didn't have our first run until 1:30, the second run was around 4:30/4:45. Yeah. The runs for the day were small to big, excellent, open, then novice. You have to start out at novice, qualify, then get titles before you can move up a class. Mostly everyone was Excellent, not many open and a small handful of novice.
Placing is done by class (Novice A, Novice B, Open, Excellent A, Excellent B) and by jump height. Penny jumps 20 inches. She measured at 18.5 inches. She clears 20 inches easily!
The first run was a standard course. I did not find it challenging. I did overcompensate my drive to the weave poles, and forced Penny to enter wrong. We went back and fixed it. One odd thing about the A frame, I think she approached it with too much energy since she kind of spring boarded off the bottom. So that counted as a refusal. Penny held all of her contacts and did the broad jump perfectly (even tho we haven't trained it in a long time). Oh and she did great at the table! I told her down and she plopped right down. And stayed there till I released her! Was sooooo happy that she held the table!!!! We got first place (out of 2 dogs in Novice A) and we qualified! The Qualifying is the important thing! So we got 2 ribbons for this run (one blue one green - 1st place and qualifying).
The second run was a jumpers with weaves. This had 13 jumps, one tunnel and one set of weaves. I chose the total wrong line to start out with. It seemed ok in my head, but Penny is getting so fast and me being pregnant, I am having a hard time keeping up. So she was a little misdirected for a few jumps. OOPS. But she nailed her weave entrance. And we did great with the remaining jumps. I need to work getting more ahead of her. She is just gaining so much speed lately, which is a good thing, which means I need to gain speed. But she did fantastically! We were the only ones in our class for our jump height, so we got first and also qualified! WooHoo!
So the day was a HUGE success. Penny was so much more focused on me and what she had to do. I had a lot of fun watching and learning. I met some women there who ran very pregnant and ended up giving birth within a few days (crossing fingers).
I cannot wait for our next trial. Thinking about entering one in mid September. Going to ask my doctor tomorrow on what s/he thinks (forgot who I have it with, not sure if it is a male or female doctor).
Oh found it interesting there weren't as many mixed breeds there. When Nick was holding Penny at one point, he said someone came up to him and asked what she was. He said a mix, and she responded with "ooooo" all snootly and walked away. OK Whatever! Mixed Breeds have only been allowed to compete in Agility with AKC for a few months, and it is up to the club doing the trial to decide if they want mixed breeds or not. It was a corgi club doing the trial this weekend. Was talking to someone, and they had someone leave the club because they were allowing mixed breeds! Come on! How racist do you have to be! Or should I say breed-ist. Even the woman I was talking to was like breeds are not that old. At one point all dogs were mixed breeds! A dog is a dog, and especially in the sporting environment, who cares what they are, should only care about the dogs preformance!
