An "Excellent" Weekend

This weekend I had Bosley entered in a CKC Agility trial near Edmonton. The drive was long (6 hours) but the hotel was decent (yay) and the trial was fun although it seemed to move slow. Overall, I was pleased with Bosley this weekend. He was a bit gawky on Saturday, but never left to sniff anything. This weekend was the first time he ever saw the 24" spacing on the weave poles. His weaving is much smoother with the wider poles although he popped the last pole on 3 runs - not sure if this had anything to do with the different rhythm in the poles or if it was because of something else. He usually doesn't pop poles.

I was generally happy with my handling this weekend. I pulled Bosley off a couple jumps because I started moving laterally away before he was fully committed to the jump, so I will need to be more aware of that. I also popped him out of the weave poles because my hair was in my face and when I moved my hand to get the hair out of my eyes, Bosley popped. I pulled my hair back under a hat for the rest of the weekend. There were 3 courses that had a turn away into a tunnel off the A-frame. Bosley nailed the first 2 (perfect) but on the third one, I was too late with my "turn" cue and he was already looking towards the next obstacle and missed the turn.

Now to the videos:

This is Bosley's first run of the weekend. He started to sniff and when I called him back he was too close to the double jump and he knocked a bar. Too bad - otherwise it was a nice run. This was also the first time he saw the wider weave poles spacing.

This video is Bosley's Excellent Jumper With Weaves run on Saturday. You can't tell in the video, but I was planning on doing a lead out pivot, but Bad Boy Bosley broke his start line so I just had to start running. It worked out in the end - Bosley got a 'Q'.

This next run Bosley got stuck coming out of the first tunnel and was a bit slow going into the weaves. This run was a bit slow and Bosley missed my turn cue into the tunnel but he ran fault free for an Excellent Standard 'Q'.

This next JWW was a fun course. Bosley had been popping the last pole, so I gave him a little extra support on this run. Too bad he dropped a bar.

This next video was our last run of the weekend. You can tell Bosley was getting a bit tired. He managed to earn a 'Q' though (1 second over time for 3 faults) and I even did some rear crosses on this run. This run also finished Bosley's Excellent Jumpers With Weaves Title!

Overall it was a good weekend. I have decided I really need to get a GPS for my car. I got lost a couple times and if it wasn't for Amanda navigating and reading the map, I might still be trying to find my way to the trial :) Amanda was also my offical videographer for the weekend - so I kept her busy.