Agility Success

We finally went to a real agility trial. It's been months since the last one, and I've been practicing really hard. So mom decided to let me show off my new skills. On day one, I did not disappoint.

First run was Arnie. He's only entered in Jumpers with Weaves at the moment, since Open classes are so small, mom doesn't want to have both of us run back to back. So once I get up into Excellent Standard, Arnie gets to run 2 runs. His run in JWW was really good. Mom's been really working the weaves a lot, and he nailed them! But she pulled him off a jump, and he got a refusal. No mercy in Excellent, so no Q. But it was a nice run.

Then I got to run JWW (I'm in Open). It was similar to Arnie's course, with a minor change. I rocked the course. Fast, furious, and committed. A bobble at the weaves (apparently mom's training with ME on the weaves isn't working out so well) cost us 5 points, but you get a "gimmee" in Open. So I got my 3rd leg, and now have an OPEN JUMPERS WITH WEAVES title!!!!

After that great performance, it was on to Open Standard. Well, that run was a little wacky. I'm usually a focused runner, but I kind of lost my mind in the ring. First, the ring crew and judge took foooorrrreeeever to set bars and do the paperwork. So the 5 dogs in front of me took about 20 minutes. So I was a little stuffed with treats, and pissed off that we weren't going! Then we got into the ring, and there was a paperwork glitch. So more waiting, in the ring. I was pretty spun up by that point, and was spinning and barking my head off. When mom said "go" I took off running. After 3 obstacles, I completely lost control and did the zoomies. That has NEVER happened before. I tried to cover by finding a clump of dirt at the edge of the ring and trying to eat it, but mom didn't buy it. But I got back on track, finished in plenty of time, and we qualified with a first place ribbon. Whew.....redeemed myself. Unfortunately, my instructor stayed to watch me run, and while she thought it was cute, I was a little embarrassed.

On the way home, we ran into TONS of bad traffic. Mom says she's never seen some much construction in her life. We sat at a detour for over an hour. Mom was mad, but we were snoring. When we got home, she made dad take her out for mexican food and a margarita. That helped the mood a lot.

We went back to the show on Sunday - I'll write about that tomorrow.

By the way, that's an old picture of me weaving. There wasn't a photographer at this show.