A Nice Weekend For Agility

Our agility club hosted a trial this weekend.  Everything seemed to go very smoothly and everyone from our group did very well.  For a few of the dogs and handlers, it was their very first trial, and they all did great.  I think that everyone had fun, which is what it is really all about - right?

Maggie and I had a weekend that I felt really good about.  The weather was warm, but a nice cool breeze kept Maggie from becoming too hot and sluggish.  We got 2 "Q"S this weekend - one in Starters Snooker and one in Advanced Gamblers.

Here is Maggie in our gamble, heading towards the tunnel.

I went into the run quite doubtful if Maggie could get the closing gamble.  The closing gamble was the A-frame and then a push about 15' away from me into a tunnel.  After the tunnel were two jumps, moving slightly away from the gamble line.  She did great in the opening sequence and in the final gamble she went over the A-frame and then came towards me, but when I sent her out to the tunnel, she went and then took the last two jumps with no problem.

This is a nice shot of Maggie turning to go up the A-frame.

Our Snooker run went great.  Maggie was really focused on what I was asking her to do, something that has never happened in a Snooker run before.  I think that I was much more confident and that really helped.  I picked a nice flowing path for Maggie, although there were some tough angles to manvouver.  We even made it all the way to the end of the last obstacle in the closing sequence with 14 seconds to spare!  We needed 37 points to qualify and we finished with 46 points.

I love this picture of Maggie going up the A-frame.  Her expression is great!

With the exception of one Steeplechase run (Maggie ran off the course) the rest of our runs were quite good.  Maggie stayed upbeat for most of the weekend.  

Maggie had a great Steeplechase run today and, even though I forgot where I was going, Maggie ran clean but was 10 seconds over time.

Love the Expression.

She had one really nice standard run, but knocked a bar and missed a contact.  Despite the faults, she gave it her best and was 10 seconds under time.

Going down the A-frame.

The highlight of our weekend was that Maggie was chosen for the Judges Choice Award.  Each of the judges chooses a dog or a run that stood out in their mind over the weekend.  Maggie was chosen, by judge Shirley Ann Redl, for her Snooker run!  The Snooker course had some very tight and awkward angles and the judge liked how Maggie, being a big dog, negotiated the tight turns and changes in direction.  I know that Maggie cannot make tight turns like the smaller dogs can, so I always try to give her lots of room to get a nice approach to obstacles and it really paid off today in our Snooker run.

Oops!! Looks like Maggie forgot to touch the yellow.

Many thanks to Wendy for taking all the great pictures.