Walking The Plank - Or Not!

This past Saturday, Marge, Louie and I took a road trip to Hatfield, Pennsylvania, for an AKC agility trial. Though I was swamped with school work (and still am) and even at one point regretted entering, I had a great time.

The trial site was AWESOME.  The layout of the rings was really cool - two turf rings separated by an aisle with chairs and bleachers.  The crating area was huge and was in the back. I left Marge's crate at home and opted to just let her hang out for the day, thinking she might need time to adjust to the site.  Nope.. walked in and made herself comfortable immediately.  Always amazing me, this dog!

Outside the JWW ring.

Jumpers was our first course and it turned out to be pretty tricky.  I started the run off on a sour foot by calling a rear cross too early and pulling Marge right off of a jump.  She was just a tiny bit zoomy - maybe the surface, maybe not - and lightning quick.  I wound up having to layer a jump because there was just no way I was going to catch up to her.  The middle of the course went nicely, until she missed her weave entrance.  Then, at the end of the course she went flying over two wrong course jumps without any thought.  Not one of our best, but by no means terrible.

The Standard course was gorgeous and I was trying to convince myself that it wasn't (because generally, any time I like a course, I screw up on it).  Turns out *I* did everything right and handled it pretty well.  There were almost no crosses - I crossed behind the weaves (easy cross), in front of the A-Frame (another easy cross), and reared at the very end (the only tight turn, really), and that was it. The challenge, I think, lied in the fact that the course was very, very speedy.

Alas, our Q-less streak in Standard continued, due to a very early bail-out on the teeter.  Probably just a freak thing.





It's always something in Standard, it seems. Still, the run was lightyears better than our last Standard run, and since this was a new place, a new surface, etc., I was happy with her performance.  It was a great day out for all of us and I'd definitely trial there again.

We have work to do before our next trial on August 6 and 7... namely, weave entrances, teeter practice, and direction coming out of the chute.  We have NOT practiced nearly enough lately, due to both the heat and my crazy schedule.  I hope to get some quality training time in within the next few weeks to tighten things up and hopefully work on that pesky AX title.