Columbia River Agility Club, AKC trial, June 11-12, 2011

 Another agility weekend in Ridgefield, WA.  We drove up on Friday, staying at my friend Kennedy's house.  We were up early Saturday to get crate space as well as it was a Tall to Small day for us. First up was Standard. 

Excellent B Standard, Saturday

When I picked up the map, I was pretty pleased.  It seemed like a nice, flowing, straightforward  course. 

Unfortunately it didn't go as planned.  It was a fast opening with a nice straight line through obstacles 1-2-3.  HP was moving well, we were doing great.  I pulled him around 4-5 and sent him on to the teeter, then front-crossed before the weaves.  Awesome weaves, he had a great entry, then hopped up on to the table.  For some reason, he took off too early for jump 9 and knocked a bar.  I was off myself after that, sent him into the  #12 tunnel and got way too far ahead of him for his dogwalk, didn't cue it properly, and he took an off-course jump (#17/11) instead.  We finished strongly with no other problems, but obviously an NQ. :(

The good parts of the run:

1. He was fast, happy, and running well, even though it was warm-ish.
2. He hit a difficult weave entry that I was worried about.  
3. We got in a lovely front cross at the teeter.
4. We didn't go splat at the #19 chute to #20 jump, which with the way things were angled, was a distinct possibility!

I think the video is in slow-motion (accidentally) but you get the idea.

Excellent B Jumpers with weaves, Saturday

Jumpers also looked like a very nice course. 

We ran this starting on the inside of the loop formed by jumps 1-2-3-4-5, front-crossed at 6 to pull him around to 7.  Hit the weaves beautifully, into the tunnel with a front cross between the tunnel and #11.  Then fast and smooth all the way to the end.  MXJ leg #4 and 8 MACH points for that run.

We were done early and headed for Kennedy's house to watch True Grit and eat Chinese food. :)  Because I'm a morning person, I was up early on Sunday and headed out.  We had plenty of time to sit around, so I took the dogs for a walk around Clark County Fairgrounds.  Many of the "parking fields" had been mowed, but no one was around, so I let the boxers loose to play.  It was cool, and early, they had lots of fun.  It also gave us a chance to practice Lexi's recalls.  I'd let her run around for a while, then call her in, play tug, and send her back out to run.  We had fun, with her charging in to tug, then running back out to attack Harry Potter. :)

We got back from our walk and picked up our maps for the day.

Excellent B Standard, Sunday

Again, another nice course.  I thought for sure we'd Q in this one.

We were doing great, had good speed, nailed the weaves, handled the complex 8-9-10 sequence did a rear cross between 12/13 came around the loop and that's where the trouble was.  I ad seen several dogs take the number 18 jump then off-course at the a-frame.  In an effort to avoid that, we jumped #18, then I called him and pulled him right off the #19 triple, earning us a refusal. :(  Oh well, it was still a pretty run despite the NQ.

Excellent B Jumpers with weaves, Sunday

This one was the challenge of the weekend.  This course looked HARD from the get go.  Very jerky, and extremely difficult.

My plan for this was starting on the inside, with a front cross between 3-4, a rear cross with a turn command between 4-5, around the pinwheel,  then a rear cross between 8-9 to get the correct tunnel entry,  then a fairly simple run for the finish.   Our problem was the weaves, half way through, something squeeked/squawked outside the ring (bird, toy, I'm not sure what), and he popped out towards the distraction.  Very disappointing after we nailed the complicated part of the course.  We finished, and even though we had NQ'd, stuck around for times.  The thing was, this course was complex, but SHORT, which led to a LOT of people NQ'ing simply because they were over time, even with no other faults.  It was really disappointing for a lot of people.

No video of this run available, it was the end of the weekend and very hard to find anyone left to record.

Total for the weekend:

MXJ leg #4 and 8 MACH points.

MACH totals: 105/750 points and 2 double Qs