Monday, November 2, 2009

Agility Trial

Reagan competed in her third agility trial last weekend. She earned 2 Open Standard legs with a 2nd and a 3rd. Both had flaws... allowable flaws in the Open level..., but flaws nonetheless that would not be allowed in Excellent. So we have some homework to do. Here are her 2 runs from the first day:

I thought the Jumpers run (1st one) was awesome. The opening sequence was once again very difficult. Much more difficult than the Excellent level course the same day. The course started with 2 jumps in a straight line and then a left turn into the blue tunnel. Well, the correct tunnel entrance was facing away from the dog, but jump #4 was an obvious choice, but not correct one. Great run otherwise.

In her Standard course (2nd one), Reagan assumed the teeter was the dogwalk and surprised herself when she ran to the end and it dropped out from under her. I believe this is why she then ducked out of the A-Frame. Neither of these disqualified the run and she placed third.

On Sunday, she ducked out of the teeter, but then came back and teetered smartly. She qualified in that run with a 2nd. However, Reagan also scraped her head.I have no idea how this could have happened on course. I checked the tunnels and the chute and found nothing that would have scraped her head. :-/

We now have 2 months to work on our issues. I am not happy with the A-frame performance. She seems unclear about what to do on the downside and is wasting time by stopping mid way. I also need to work on differentiating the teeter and dog walk, so she does not get surprised on the teeter anymore. Lastly, we need to work more on collection so we can handle those tricky openings.

Riley did great this weekend. She was mostly herself and worked on heeling and fronts ring side.... at least until we saw this on Sunday afternoon:Again, I kind of think it is the smell because she will be walking along and suddenly stops in her tracks at seemingly nothing. Wierd! We will keep working.