Thursday, November 6, 2014

Agility Review

We did three trials between 24 Oct and 9 Nov. In the first two trials, neither Beckett or Keltic managed to Q. That's a bit unusual for us, I usually have the odd trial where we don't Q but not normally at two trials back to back. Anyway, not going to review those trial runs.  Except to say that Keltic was bang on in some parts of our runs and a little s***head in other parts. He's back to not wanting to weave or to do tires and he's started to pull at my pant legs when he gets frustrated. I think with him we are going to finish the trials we've entered and take a bit of a hiatus. We'll go back to agility classes in January to work on some of the basic skills.

This last weekend we were at AARF on both days of the trial so Beckett could run Steeplechase and so Keltic could run in both Starters and Advanced. Saturday, Keltic had only one run, Starter Standard, what a mistake. I should have put him in one of the Starter Games for an "exhibit only" run as he was just wild in the Standard. He broke his start line, refused the tire and went in the wrong end of the tunnel which was only obstacle 5; then when we got to the A-frame he just flew off. I put him back on twice and both times he did another flying leap. We left the ring then with him tugging on my pant leg.  Beckett had Steeplechase and two Master Standard runs.  In the first run, a Master Std, we had a very nice 5 fault run; Beckett missed the contact on his A-frame.  But I was a bit worried as in the Steeplechase course you needed to do the A-frame twice. Beckett is fast enough that he can make up 5 faults in Steeplechase but we can't usually make up 10.  Beckett was just great in the Steeplechase running down well into the yellow contact zone. We only had one little spin and since there are no refusals in Steeplechase it didn't matter, it was a clean run, well under time. That was Beckett's 25th Steeplechase Q and so he earned his Bronze Expert Steeplechase and since it was his third bronze expert title, he also earned his Bronze Versatility title. Beckett finished the day with a Master Standard Q.

Steeplechase - Nov 2014 

The next day, Keltic had two runs, Advanced Jumpers and Advanced Gamblers. The Advanced Jumpers was pretty tough. The Special and Veteran dogs ran first on Sunday and when Keltic entered the ring as the second regular dog no one had yet Q'd.  We didn't Q either but had a beautiful run until the last obstacle that dreaded tire where Keltic ran underneath incurring 20 faults for a non-completion. Only three dogs in the whole event got a Q. For Keltic's Advanced Gamblers, we worked on contacts and tires in our opening, we had enough points to Q but Keltic wouldn't get out to the far jump of the main gamble.  I was much happier with his performance on Sunday than I was with Saturday's run so he got his hot dog reward. Beckett had two runs too, a Master Standard and a Master Snooker. He didn't Q in either of them but we had already achieved what I wanted so I told him we could have fun. His Snooker was nice run but in the close I couldn't get to the end of a straight tunnel fast enough to give him direction and he started spinning so we were faulted for a refusal and whistled off.

Advanced Jumpers - Nov 2014

Keltic - Advanced Jumpers Run

We have two more trials this month and then it will be a bit of a break until after Christmas. I love agility but the break will be nice.

Beckett Loves Bronze!