Agility Trial

Yesterday a few of us went to Calgary for a day of agility.  Overall, I was quite pleased with Maggie this weekend.  This was only our 4th trial, so we are both getting used to the whole competing thing.  Our advanced gamblers run was first.  It was a little rough for both of us.  We got enough points in the opening (barely), but did not get the closing gamble.  I am not sure why, it was fairly straightforward.  Tunnel - jump - tunnel.  Maggie did the first tunnel and the jump, but went out too far and went behind the second tunnel.  Our second run was starters standard.  Maggie ran quite well on this but had a few errors that cost us the "Q".  She hesitated on the table, which she does in every trial.  I am not sure why this is, she is fine with the table in practice.  She popped a pole in the weaves and her fly-off the teeter in class the other night, made her hesitate going on the teeter.  These little things added up in time and we missed a "Q" by 0.67 seconds.  Next, we ran in the team event.  This is the first time we ran team.  We paired up with Jolayne and Tag and it was a lot of fun.  Both Jolayne and I care more about having a good run with our dogs than getting a "Q" so that took some of the pressure off if one of our dogs(or us) messed up.  Maggie and Tag also make a good team, with Tag being very fast and Maggie being slower.  Our last run was steeplechase.  This was also the first time that we entered in steeplechase.  It was so much fun, and the best that Maggie has ever run at a trial. We started off OK, then Maggie had a bobble in the weaves(there were some nice horse smells in the back corner that she was interested in) so I called her back and she back-weaved, which of course, earned us an elimination.  I took that opportunity to give her some encouragement and sent her back through the weaves.  She flew the rest of course!  It was a great way to end the day.  I will take an enthusiastic run over a half-hearted "Q" anyday.  The best thing about trials is that they really show you what you need to work on in practice.  We need to work on a faster table, weave entries (she missed a couple yesterday) and the teeter - again.  I was worried that her fly-off the teeter would cause a problem, and it did, but as much as she wanted to avoid the teeter yesterday she did what I asked so I am proud of her for that.  She also got all her contacts, but I was always right there to make sure she made it to the yellow.  She was very consistant and did not knock any poles.  If we can get everything together, someday we might get out of starters.  But for now, I want her to have fun when we are trialing and get some good, enthusiastic runs.