Blitzen Agility Trial at McCook, IL – Day 3

Day three starts fresh and I was ready.  My first run of the day was in Excellent B Jumpers with Weaves.  That is the top class and no errors are allowed.  I was focused and fast and got my first “Q” or qualifying run of the weekend.  This is my first “Q” in Excellent B and that means I can start earning points toward my Master Agility Champion, or MACH, title.  In this run I earned 9 points toward the 750 I need.  I’ll talk more about points later.  Now, let’s take a look:

My second run was in Standard Class Agility. Frankly, it was not so pretty.  I ran a big “off course” with several wrong jumps and missed my weave poles.  Nothing to brag about in this run, but Joe is to blame for the weave poles – I just did what he told me.  Take a look:

My third run was minutes later in FAST Class and it was a beautiful one.  I did a great send from fifteen feet away over the triple, through the tunnel and over the teeter.  Look at me go!  I qualified (no errors and a successful send) and took home a blue ribbon for first place.  Here I go:

The day ended with another practice run in the new AKC agility test event, Time to Beat.  Here it is:

Special thanks to our agility instructor, Anne Riba, for her encouragement and advice!

–Lancelot

Blitzen Agility Trial at McCook, IL – Day 2

Day two of the Blitzen Agility Trial in McCook, IL was an early one.  After a lovely walk along the lake with a pretty sunrise we headed out at about 6:30 a.m.  At least there is no traffic at that hour.

Our first run was in Jumpers with Weaves.  I felt I was ready, but those daarn weave poles messed me up.  This foreshadowed a bad weave poles day.  The rest of my run was beautiful.  Take a look:

Our second run was in FAST Class.  In FAST my handler designs the course I am supposed to run.  I was very distracted from the start. After missing my weave pole entry at the beginning, I still felt I could design a better course than Joe and I tried to do so.  Unfortunately I am not as good a designer as I thought I was.  Next time I plan to pay attention to Joe’s plan.  Here is the FAST Class run:

Our third run was in Standard Class.  I was focused and ready.  At Joe’s signal I took off like a rocket into the tunnel. My pause table was perfect (all the practice paid off).  My dog walk and jumps were clean and fast, but those darn weave poles did me in again. Here is the run:

As a bonus, we got an additional run in a new event being tested by the AKC.  It is called, “Time to Beat” and formerly called, “Run and Done.”  I hope they keep looking for a new name.  Our bad weave pole day continued, but there is the run:

Now it is time to rest and get ready for day 3.

–Lancelot

Blitzen Agility Trial at McCook, IL

Friday at McCook started off well with three great (but not great enough) agility runs.  Our first run was in Jumpers with Weaves.  Joe’s strategy was right on the money, but unfortunately his execution was off by about two feet.  I was required to enter the tunnel on the right side.  Joe did a nice front cross in an attempt  to block the tunnel left side, but he ended up showing me the perfect entrance to the left side, which I took without hesitation.  It’s too bad, because the rest of the run was beautiful.  Here is my Jumpers with Weaves run:

In our second run, agility Standard Class, the fault was mine.  There is only a second of lost focus between winning and not qualifying.  I spent that second looking at the bar setter sitting in the back right corner before sailing right past the entrance to the weave poles.  Again, except for one critical error, this, too, was a beautiful run.  Here is my second agility run:

The third agility run was in FAST Class.  In Excellent FAST Class you need to have your handler send you from a distance through a series of obstacles.  I followed Joe’s signal a bit too closely and did not make it.  Let’s take a look:

Thanks for reading.  Now it’s on to day two!

–Lancelot