Agility Trial Oct 20, 2012 - our first trial - Part II
The first part of our trial, the photos, can be seen here: http://petoftheday.com/talk/showthre...t-trial-Part-I
We registered for 5 runs. I have a bit of video of each run. Did not get an entire run on video, as my camera apparently shuts off if you video for more than 1 minute. Some folks did just click it again so I got the 2 parts and I've stitched them together.
First run - our first run EVER in an Agility Trial! - was Touch N Go. In Agility, you have to direct your dog to obstacles. You have to follow a proper sequence, run the course in the standard set time, and your dog must negotiate each obstacle correctly. Two of the obstacles - the A Frame, and the Dog Walk - include ramps up and down. The dog must TOUCH somewhere in the lower 42 inches of the ramp, going up and going down. Hence the name of this course. We had one A Frame and one Dog Walk, but we had to go up and over each of them TWICE in the course. So we had 8 places the dog must touch, in all. "TOUCH" or contacts has never been an issue for Willy. His legs are so short, and his body so long, he has to touch those areas anyway. Folks with larger dogs, longer legged dogs, often spend time training contacts, as the dog will simply JUMP and miss that lower 42 inches entirely. (My Riley is going to have to learn her contacts!) This video was in 2 parts, so you will see a blip after 1 minute.
http://youtu.be/mVqSNc0FFzc
You will see the judge put up both his hands at one point. That was to let the score keeper know we had a 10 point fault. The courses are always testing many many things. We did all our contacts fine. But this course included traps. The A Frame had a tunnel set under it, and the opening for the tunnel was right next to the ramp up for the A Frame. I mean, you could not get a piece of paper between the 2! I as the handler have to make it clear to Willy which obstacle he has to take. A Frame is his absolute FAVORITE obstacle, so he took it when he needed to enter the tunnel. He didn't go down, he turned and came back to me and off he went into the tunnel. Because of that fault, we did not have a qualifying run. We did take 1st place!
Next run is called Regular 1. This course includes all the many obstacles you can encounter in a run. Willy kicked one jump bar, you will see the judge hold up one hand - a 5 point fault. At the very end, Willy had to negotiate 6 weave poles. He was going to fast and first entered the set incorrectly. You will see the judge put up both hands: a 10 point fault. I called him back, and sent him through a second time - he skipped past poles 4 and 5 rather than weave them. After a third attempt we finally finished the course. Too many faults for a qualifying run, and again we took a 1st place!
http://youtu.be/RoD12O4qww4
Our next run is Regular 2. The same course, run in reverse. So we had the weave poles right at the start! You will see I practically WALK Willy to them, and hooray he negotiates them fine! Later in the course we get caught in a trap. This one has a tunnel entrance right up next to the Dog Walk, and I pushed in too close, so he took the wrong one. Hence we had a course fault, not a qualifying run, and again we made it in first place.
http://youtu.be/TLYqrNZRFuo
Tunnelers was the next course for us. In class, Willy has seen as many as 2 tunnels in one run. He is also going over jumps, through tires, all the many obstacles. Tunnelers is JUST TUNNELS. I think they had 8 of them set up and the course was set up so Willy had to go through 15. We did them all in order and had no course fault, hooray! Willy is a slow dog to start, and this whole idea of tunnel after tunnel after tunnel was new to him. As we walked off the course, we passed the judge who said to me, "your dog's face said 'I've never seen so many tunnels in my LIFE!'" The person who filmed this run went up on the mezzanine level. They do have netting up there so you will be 'looking' through that (remember this is a sports facility, you could have a soccer ball flying up there, so the netting it up for safety). You get a bird's eye view! When she returned my camera, she said she was laughing like crazy, his face just kept getting this look, "ANOTHER tunnel?" This video was in 2 parts which I have stitched together so you will see a jump in the viewing. We got a second place in this course.
http://youtu.be/vVKmPGrEXa4
Our 5th and final run of the day was JUMPERS. Willy jumps at 8 inches in class, but 4 inches at this trial (dogs older than age 7 can get a reduced jump height and he is over 9 years). Willy was tired, he had enough of this nonsense, the field is huge for a little bichon, he'd been running it all day. Enjoy this run, lol.
http://youtu.be/ATbxul1se6g
We had no course faults, I managed to find my way through it all well. Our time was WAY off (if you watched the video, you know why ha haaa). We earned a 2d place for this course.
Stand by a few pics to add!
