Thursday, April 7, 2016

UKI Eastern Spring Cup

This past weekend we did the UKI Eastern Spring Cup. It's kind of a championship, there's one held out west, here in Ontario (the Eastern Cup) and one down east, called the Atlantic Spring Cup. All of the events are paired and there are ribbons and, in the Masters series, even money as prizes.

I entered Beckett in three challenges, the Games, the Speedstakes and the Biathlon; Keltic, I only entered in the Games and the Speedstakes.  This was the first time the Spring Cup was held in our neck of the woods, usually it's about a five hour drive away but this year it was held in Spencerville where we trial regularly just an hour from my house

There were over 100 dogs registered in each of the events. I thought we would be there quite late but things ran really smoothly and I made it home by 7:30 pm each evening.. I was sure glad we hadn't entered the Master series as those runs were first thing in the morning.  They started at 7:45 am and that would have meant leaving the house at about 6 am. As it was we only had to leave at around 8 am to get there by 9 am and we still had plenty of time to get ourselves settled.

On Saturday, both my guys ran Snooker and Speedstakes and Beckett ran the Biathlon Jumpers.  we did all right on the first day, Keltic had a five fault Speedstakes and Beckett had a five fault Jumpers, he popped the weaves of all things. Neither dog got the Snooker but you only have 45 seconds in UKI Snooker to get 37 points. I thought Beckett had it as I thought we had started obstacle 6 when the buzzer sounded but when we watched the video he had only just turned for the first jump of six, he hadn't actually taken it.

On Sunday, both Beckett and Keltic ran Gamblers and Speedstakes. I was a little disappointed that in the main gamble both options were distance Gambles. The UKI also allows time gambles where you have to be in the right place to actually get the gamble because the time is so tight. Anyway neither dog got the gamble but both did get the required minimum 20 points in only 30 seconds. Keltic actually beat Beckett by one point as Beckett had a fly-off on the teeter and then started to spin wasting quite a bit of time. Beckett had a beautiful Speedstakes, running the course in 28 seconds. Keltic had another 5 fault ran, that resulted in him getting the first place in the aggregate scoring of the event. Beckett had 15 faults in his Agility Biathlon event, two refusals and a missed contact on the dog walk.


There weren't many dogs in the 12" Select, most people in UKI run their dogs at their regular jump height but I moved Beckett and Keltic down last year.  So I'm proudest of Keltic's fist place Speedstakes as he had to beat Beckett and also of Beckett's Games challenge 2nd place ribbon (the red and white one) since there too he had to beat other dogs in the class. Beckett was the only 12" Select that ran the Biathlon challenge so as the last event of the day and very nearly the last dog, the real challenge was for me to remember the course.

Anyway, we had a good time and came away with some lovely ribbons.



Video of Beckett's Speedstakes runs

Video of Keltic's Speedstakes runs

Monday, April 4, 2016

UKI Spring Cup - Keltic's Point of View



Hey dere ebreybody is me Keltic. Mums said I gets to tell you abouts our weekend. We went to play UKI agility, seems pretty much da same as our other gility to me, I gots to do lots off jumps and tunnels.

Mums just entered me for da experience in two events, da Games challenge and da Speedstakes challenge.  In da Games, I had ta do Snooker, Mums had me do 3 A-frames in our opening as she knew I could do dem pretty good. I missed one of da yellow bits but we got through our opening and started da closing bit. We was doing beautiful but den dere was dose nasty weavers. I tried but I wents in da wrong way and dere wented da whistle.  The second games was Gamble, Mums planned a course where I just had to do jumps, tunnels and da teeter, I did really good and eben beat Beckett for points. I didn't gets da main Gamble though but needer did Beckett.

Speedstakes 1


But da biggest surprise was in Speedstakes, I only had 5 faults in my first run but Beckett had an off course. Beckett did really good in his second run and gotted a Q but again I only had five faults in my run so I gotted first place overall in Speedstakes, da big red, white and blue ribbon.

Speedstakes 2


 Isn't dat something, I beated Beckett.  Mums was really surprised and very happy about da ribbon. I would da been happier if I had gotted a big cookie instead. Mums said she'd write about da whole weekend later but she thought I'd like to tell you all about my results myself.

 Hurrah for me, Keltic da Speedy!