Beckett gets MAD

Beckett got MAD this weekend, MADC that is. With his third Masters Standard Qualifying score, he got his Masters Agility Dog of Canada title. Now we only need five more Q's for his Agility Trial Champion of Canada title, three Gamblers and two Snookers.  I checked the AAC statistics for Tucker and Beckett last night and it took took over 2.8 years for Tucker to go from his first Q to MADC, it took Beckett about 1.7 years to achieve his MADC.  I know there are dogs who have done this quite a bit faster but given our level of effort, I'm very proud of my Beckett. If he had a more focused, dedicated and fitter handler, I'm sure he would be a world class agility dog.

The weekend started with two Gamblers. The first one, required a send out past a jump to the dog walk. I tried using the jump to flip Beckett out to the dog walk but it didn't work.  There were very few dogs that actually got this Gamble; in fact Beckett with 37 opening points placed second in his jump height. The second Gamble, I thought he had a chance of doing. It was a tunnel, weaves (both nearly on the line), out to another tunnel then finishing with another jump.  I thought Beckett would do the tunnel weaves and probably have difficulty getting out to the second tunnel.  We ran into our difficulty earlier than expected when he popped out of the weaves.

Masters Standard 1

Masters Standard 2

Next up was the two Standard runs of the day. He got his Q in the first run. Right at the beginning of the run, he nearly got hung up in the tire; I heard the tire rattle rather than really seeing it. The next obstacle after the tire was the chute; I was a bit behind him so he turned towards me and did a little spin but I got him straightened out and the rest of the run was really nice.  The run was good enough for second place, he was beaten by a very fast Jack Russell who is, in fact, the number 3 dog in the AAC for Q's this year. Beckett's second Standard was just beautiful. It ran like a Steeplechase, fast and flowing; only one problem, I released him from the dog walk a moment too soon and he missed his contact.  He was the only dog in his height class not to Q but when I looked at the course times, he was not only the second fastest in his height but his time was the fourth fastest of all the Regular dogs.

Next up was our Snooker run, we decided to do only three reds and then do the close rather than trying for the fourth red. The run was going beautifully and we were doing the close when Beckett crashed the double jump. It was the second part of obstacle 5 and we needed obstacle 6 to Q.  This is not the first time Beckett has crashed down onto the second bar of the double; I don't think he sees the width of the jump.  I'm going to be making myself a double jump and will retrain this over the winter with a different command.

Our last run of the day was Team; it was only Beckett's second time in Team.  Right away, I had to wrap a jump and Beckett, who had been wrapping jumps beautifully all day decided now to back jump, then on the A-frame tunnel discrimination, he took the tunnel instead of the frame.  So no chance for our partners to Q but I felt a little better when our partner missed the weave entry. So we still do not have a Team Q to our name but then we've only done two.

So it was quite a good day, although by the number of Q's, you wouldn't know it. We have two more trials this year, I'm hoping another Gamblers Q will be in the cards for us but if not I'm sure we'll have fun.

Now that he can say he's a Master Agility dog, I think Beckett's new nickname for Keltic is "Grasshopper".