Nationals Recap

Last weekend, we went to the Agility Association of Canada (AAC) National Agility Championship. Keltic only got to play on Friday at the sanctioned trial events since he missed qualifying for Nationals by 0.4 points. Quite a heart breaker but as someone said he saved me money and the stress of running two dogs.  Keltic got to run two Masters Jumpers courses and was able to get his first Masters qualifying score with a very nice clean run. There was only one spot where I thought we might have had a refusal but another competitor, who is also an AAC judge, told me Keltic stopped but never had any backward motion. I thought all those tunnels in the middle would cause an off course but they didn't.

Beckett had two Steeplechase runs on Friday. Since Steeplechase is time plus faults, he managed to get a Q with a bar down (5 faults) but didn't Q on a clean run since we spent a lot of time getting the second set of weaves done and were over time. But that run was still good enough for third place and qualified us to run in the Steeplechase final on Sunday. More on that later.

They had so many dogs in the Steeplechase that they didn't finish running until about 8:30 pm and had to run under the lights of the grand stand. They also had to postpone the opening ceremonies until Saturday morning.

Some of the Nationals rings

Opening Ceremony

Judges in kilts

Saturday was the first competition day of Nationals. Over the two days of Nationals, we would run six courses, two Standards, two Jumpers and two Gambles. Our rotation on Saturday was Jumpers, Gamblers and last the Standard.  We didn't get a clean round in either Standard or the Jumpers, we had one refusal on the weaves in the Standard and two refusals in the Jumpers course.   We had a decent opening in the Gamble but could not get the main Gamble. We finished the day in 13th place out of 18 dogs in the double drop 8" veteran class.

Saturday night was the banquet. It was quite well organized and the meal was good too. I had the salmon.  They had highland dancers and step dancers for the entertainment.

Step Dancers

Highland Dancers

Complete Dance Troupe

It made for a late evening though. We left at about 8 pm. Getting home around 9 pm, it was off to bed after the dogs had been fed, Sunday would be another early day.

On Sunday, our rotation was Standard, Gamblers, then Jumpers. It was good to get the Standard done before it was too hot. The Standard had the weaves divided into two sets of six. Beckett was having problems with weaves over the weekend and sure enough he faulted the second set of six, we also got a refusal on one of the tunnels. Again in Gamblers we had a nice opening and Beckett did the first four obstacles of the Gamble before running out of time. I was quite happy about that.  Last up was our Jumpers, since we were in the Steeplechase finals they had moved Beckett up in the running order so we would have time to rest.  We had a beautiful clean round in Jumpers.  The standard course time was 49 seconds so we were over 10 seconds under time.

Finally, we had Steeplechase to run, there were a minimum of three dogs in each height class. Beckett and another Sheltie named Brigid ran very close in time in the sanctioned event but the third dog Cinn, an Icelandic Sheepdog was very fast in comparison.  I expected him to win. Beckett ran first since he qualified third and we set the time to beat. Beckett popped the first set of weaves at the tenth but we finished them before moving on. We ran the rest of the run clean even if parts of it weren't really pretty; Beckett even stayed in the second set of weaves. I didn't see Brigid's or Cinn's run; all I heard for Cinn's run was that he took 20 faults for not completing the weaves.  Maybe the handler thought he had done them but had put the dog back in at the wrong pole or in the wrong direction but in any case even a fast dog has a hard time making up 20 faults.  Beckett and I got first place, beating Brigid by only 2/100's of a second.

Overall I was  a bit disappointed. We finished in 13th place out of 18 dogs but there was some tough competition. That clean Jumpers run over 10 seconds under time was only good enough for 8th place. I did do the "what if" scenario, and if we hadn't had the weave issue, then we would have had a clean first Standard run. If we had run that clean, we would have ended up in 10 place overall and made the podium. But we had some nice runs and got to run Steeplechase with everyone watching. What a blast that was; I could hear people from the standings cheering us on.  Beckett gave me all he had over the weekend and that's all you can ask.

Keltic and his first Masters ribbons

Reflections on the 2016 AAC Nationals

Last week, I attended the 2016 AAC National Agility Championships with Beckett. Keltic had qualified to go too but I wanted to focus on Beckett and didn't think Keltic was really ready for that level of competition. This year's championship was held in Montreal, Quebec, only a two and half hour drive from my home. It was held at a school, outdoors on artificial turf.  That caused quite a few people to decide not to attend as turf can get really hot with the hot summer weather. I decided that if Beckett showed signs of discomfort we would withdraw so that was another reason that I did not enter Keltic; losing entry fees for one dog would be bad enough. Of course, we had probably the hottest weekend of the summer. I did find the turf to be hot, very hot in fact, but not burning hot. Several dogs did burn their pads but I would expect it was due to them doing very tight turns or that they had tender pads and were predisposed to that type of injury anyway even if the surface had been dry grass.

The facility was very nice. The soccer field area was completely fenced and surrounded treed park areas and asphalt trails for the shade tenting areas. There were also fountains around the park and a couple in the soccer field that they also had hoses connected to, so there was water available for soaking cool coats, filling wading pools for the dogs and misting tents for people and dogs. The soccer fields were also lighted which came into play on Saturday as due to delays, some dogs were still running at 9:30 pm. There was even an off-leash dog park, that some of the organizers didn't even know about, that we found on Saturday.

Tent City (Photo credit: Leslie Cameron)

The trip to Nationals started with a bit of a panic due the fact that the hotel I had booked way back in January had changed their pet policy from two dogs per room, no weight limit, to one dog up to 10 lbs and then only in one room at the hotel. I managed to get another booking at the hotel that was one of the event sponsors. Three others were also affected by this policy change, two other competitors and a friend of mine who was coming to spectate. Choice Hotels Customer Care was good though, they gave me a $150 discount since the new hotel was more expensive and they gave me 16,000 reward points. It turned out just fine, the new hotel was closer and most competitors were staying there so there was lots of people to chat with in the hotel restaurant in the evenings.

Our accommodations

I arrived on site Wednesday to set up. Most times you can drive up near to the crating area to offload.  The facility had a great turn-around area where that could have been done but they wouldn't let us drive up so I got Beckett on leash and dragged the shade tent about 600 m to one of the crating areas. I found some people I knew and decided that was far enough. I had planned to walk around to select a site. The site we got worked out just fine, close to one of the gates for the soccer fields, we could see some of the rings through the fence, equidistant from two rows of portapotties (kind of important don't you know) and close to the information tent and vendors row.   After setting up and registering, we left and went to check in at the hotel. My roommate and I just decided just to eat at the hotel restaurant. It took a while as there was only one wait staff and she was also doing room service

Thursday afternoon, we had two warm-up runs, two Steeplechase. My favourite event with Beckett as there are no refusals so spinning only loses time. We had one bit of spinning on a tunnel in the first run and a really nice run for the second. Beckett got a qualifying score in both runs and came in 7th place in both runs as well. There was a Steeplechase finals to be held on Sunday but I didn't know if that would be good enough to win us a spot.  We ate again at the hotel but the hotel had not learned from the night before and there was still only one wait staff. He gave us our drinks for free since we had waited so long.

Competitor's view of ring 5

Friday, the championships began. We had two runs in the morning, a Standard and a Gamblers. One run, a Jumpers, was scheduled for 6pm.  Gamblers is not our thing, Beckett did a lot of spinning in this event, as a result we only had a 28 point opening. Next up in our Standard, we had one refusal for spinning on a tunnel and one bar down for 10 faults.  In Nationals, in the Standard and the Jumpers you start with points and your faults are deducted. The Standard is worth a 100 points and the Jumpers 75 points.  If you are clean, points are added for every second you are under the standard course time. As an example if you are clean in a Standard and are 8 seconds under time you would get 108 points for that event. In Gamblers, you earn points and if you get the main gamble get 35 bonus points and get points for every second under time, so if you had 40 opening points, got the main gamble for 35 points and were two seconds under time, you would have 77 points. Highest scoring dog after the six events wins the championship. There are overall placements down to 10th place as well as individual event awards. Our performance in the first two events didn't place us all that high in the 10" Special class. Now we had to wait for the Jumpers run that was supposed to be at 6pm. The events had started late and they kept getting more and more delayed as the day went on; there  was even an individual event ribbon ceremony in the afternoon while our dogs sat in their crates in the heat. Some people took the long break as an opportunity to go back to the hotel which in hindsight was a very good idea.  We didn't start the walk-throughs for Jumpers until about 7pm and I didn't run until about 8:30 pm.  Beckett was spinny, I had walked the course with about 9 front crosses and, for three of them, I just couldn't get to where I needed to be. I know enough to stop when he spins and get him back on line, so we finished with a clean run, still a few seconds under time. But the extra time we took cost us as we ended up in 16th place on that run. We got back to the hotel just after 9 pm and ordered in pizza.  We over-estimated how much we could eat and had a whole pizza left, which we had for lunch the next two days. It was good pizza so that worked out just fine.

Beckett running at Nationals (Photo credit: Tamara Gallant)

Saturday we had the second Gamblers and Jumpers courses.  Again Gamblers is not our thing, we did a little better for opening points getting 31 points and Beckett did go out the first obstacle of the Gamble but I could not get him to complete the main gamble in the time allowed. The Jumpers run was beautiful, we were clean and under time, I hoped that we would place in this event and we did getting 9th place.  Saturday was the banquet. The organizers had planned a great banquet with little gift bags of dog treats and candy (for humans) and napkin rings made with heart-shaped dog cookies. The caterers had prepared a wonderful meal and there was lots to go around, they even had enough for people to go for seconds. We had roasted pork, beef, baked potatoes, vegetable rice, salads, rolls with butter. For dessert, there were Nationals cupcakes that were made by a 15 year-old.

Jumpers 2 and Score Sheet

Our placement ribbon (Photo by: Elaine McLean)

Sunday, they divided each of the height classes into the top 15 and all the rest. There was only one run to do which was the second Standard. The "rest" ran by height class first thing in the morning and the top 15 of the Specials and Vets ran later in the morning and the top 15 of the Regular height classes were show cased running one ring at a time in the afternoon. Beckett wasn't in the top 15 so to be safe we went early in the morning as there were no walk-throughs shown on the program, only again to have some delays. We had a beautiful Standard, a great way to end our Nationals runs. I was a little close to the weaves but Beckett got his weave entry anyway. I came out of the ring sure we had a clean run but my friend said we got five faults and I knew it had to be on the dog walk. It must have been a very close call as I can usually see if he misses the contact zone. Bad luck, had we hit the yellow bit, he would have had 7th place based on his time. We did make the Steeplechase finals. They had live streaming for some of the events over the weekend and Steeplechase was one of those events. It was the last event of the day and they ran all the dogs, one jump height after another in one ring so everyone could watch. It was really cool to hear the announcer say your name as you entered the ring: "Now entering the ring Beckett, a Shetland Sheepdog, handled by Helen Stewart".  I messed up our weave entry but we finished clean in 42 seconds, not fast the mistake at the weaves cost us 3 to 4 seconds.  It was also cool to hear people cheering you on down the last stretch, I don't think Beckett has ever seen me so far in front of him but he stayed on his line and did all the jumps. Maybe I should remember that, as Fred says, if you aren't ahead of your dog, you aren't flying.

Standard 2 and Score Sheet

This year there was an event that was started at last year's Nationals; it is a 3-dog team event. You register a team of three dogs and handlers, the handlers have to be members of the AAC.  They record the scores from your runs counting only the top score although each dog has to count for two of the scores at the end of the scoring. The top team wins $1200, the second place team $600 and the third place team $300. It doesn't cost anything to enter other than your AAC membership. Beckett was on a team we called " This, That and The Other". There are also small prizes for Best Name and Best Costume. Our team came in 35th of 92 teams, not too bad.  I thought we had great costumes but we didn't make the cut in the costume contest, a team with only t-shirts did. The team that won the costume contest had a little white convertible car that their dogs rode in, that was really cute. We had t-shirts and headboppers for us, tires and mini cowboy hats for our dogs to wear. I guess you had to see the photo we had for our team to really understand the dog's costume.

Photo designed by Leslie Cameron

In costume, t-shirts and dog tires designed by Leslie

I wanted to wait for the ribbon ceremony for the aggregate placements as I had many friends who had made it to the podium including my roommate and her dog but I had set a deadline for my departure of 6:30 pm. At 6:38 pm, when they had not yet started the ribbons I decided to leave, after all there was the two and half hour drive home.  I still had some stuff to pack up so had to make two trips down to the car, I heard the start of the ribbon ceremonies when I packed up Beckett's crate and made that last walk to the car with him to begin our trip home.

The 2016 Nationals was over for us, they were fantastic despite the heat. I hope god-willing we'll be able to go to the 2018 Nationals where Beckett will definitely run as a veteran dog and perhaps even Keltic will get a chance to show his stuff. The 2017 Nationals are being held in British Columbia and that's just too far for us to travel.

Nationals Swag

New agility t-shirts

Beckett's Nationals Adventure

Well, Beckett's been there and back again on his first AAC National Championship adventure. The drive down was an adventure in itself. I have a small utility trailer to use when I have lots of stuff to take on camping trips or other long trips.  The night before we left, I went to hitch up the trailer and one of the tires was flat. No big deal, I used my compressor and pumped it up, the next morning it was fine so off we went. It was a nice day for a drive, we stopped after about two hours on the road to see how things were doing and everything was alright. We stopped for supper in Edmunston NB and when we came out another driver told us that the trailer tire was flat. Luckily I had thrown the compressor in the car so we pumped it up again and hit the road. We stopped to check the tire often and it seemed fine. We made it to Fredericton where we would spend the night. It's only about an hour and a half from Sussex. The next morning the tire was flat again so again we pumped it up.

Other people had stopped at the Blue Canoe restaurant and posted pictures of their dogs so I decided we would do the same.  At the Blue Canoe, we used the air pump at the gas station, now we could hear hissing from the tire. We took our pictures quickly and hit the road again for Sussex hoping that the tire would hold out.

Beckett and Keltic at the Blue Canoe

 

We got to Sussex and made an appointment at Canadian Tire to get the tire repaired or replaced. They got us in after lunch and had the trailer repaired with two new tires in about 20 minutes.

We got to the trial site and registered. We also got the keys for our rooms at the local university. We set up our space near friends from the Ottawa area.



Our set up for Nationals

The next day was warm-ups and pre-events. Beckett only had one Steeplechase event to run, when I registered, I was sure both Steeplechase were scheduled on the same day. We were lucky though we ran before the rain started and we got a qualifying score. It was Beckett's 23rd Q so now we only need two more for his Bronze Expert title. Things were starting off great.

The next morning saw the start of the Nationals events. We had Gamblers and then Standard to run the first day. Beckett was spinning a lot in the Gambler so we didn't get through the opening I planned and we didn't get the main gamble either. That was fine it was just the first event. Our Standard went well except for taking down the double jump;  I was happy with how he ran, a 5 fault run is pretty good. We also had our second Steepechase run. It had been pouring rain and the ground was muddy. Beckett was nearly the 100th dog in the ring. Even though we ran a cautious but clean run both of us slipped a little. Beckett's time was just over 40 seconds and we only had a standard course time of 42 seconds. That was his 24th Q, now only one to go for his title.

The next day we would run Jumpers and Gamblers. We had a decent jumpers run but I ran to close to the jump he was supposed to serp and he pushed to the back of the jump for an off course. The rest of the run was nice but 20 faults put us way down in the standings for that event. The next event Gamblers was a tough one. I didn't even think Beckett would go out the distance obstacle in the main Gamble. Our opening was good, he almost did the first mini and did the second mini gamble twice. He surprised me and did get out to the jump of the main gamble but then took the jump on the line rather than getting out the dog walk.

On the last day of Nationals, we had a jumpers and a standard run. The jumpers was going nice until I found myself out of place after a front cross. I called Beckett off a jump thinking he was going off course, turned out he was right and I was wrong and I caused us 5 faults for the refusal. I decided to go for it in our last run the Standard, after all we had nothing to lose. We got a refusal on the broad jump right off the bat, then an off course when he took the tunnel instead of the A-frame and a refusal on the weave entry. On the good side, he did stay out to do the jump after the tunnel under the dog walk and got the broad jump which we don't see all that often. I think we have only seen it once before.

 

 

I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed in our Nationals performance, while I didn't really expect to place I had hoped to better our Regionals score where we had a score of 465 points; at Nationals we ended up with only 364 points.Trying to focus on the positive, most of the errors were mine and Beckett actually ran well. I am considering moving him to Specials though so he doesn't have to jump as high and will no longer see the double jump. There are indications he's slowing down some so maybe the lower jump height would help. Next year, Nationals will be out in Burnaby BC, too far for us to travel so by the time they are back out east Beckett could be nearly a veteran dog so another reason to think about letting him jump the lower height.

 

 

 

Looking forward already to the next time when both Beckett and Keltic will have a Nationals Adventure. More on our east coast holiday in another post.









Goals and Desires

Well, we begin trialling next month and I have a few goals for the upcoming year. The number one goal is, of course, to just enjoy doing agility with Ceilidh and Tucker. But we do have a few objectives that we would like to attain this year if all goes well. For Tucker, I'd like to get his Expert Bronze in Jumpers, Gamblers, Standard for his Bronze Versatility title. I'd also like to qualify for and place in Nationals in his height class. All of these goals are attainable for him since he is such a consistent dog. I hope the agility vacation we have taken over the winter will give him a little burst of energy.




For Ceilidh, my goals would be to get a Masters Q in any other event but Jumpers. I have the feeling once we get one the flood gates will open; I hope I am right about this. I would like to get one more Masters Jumpers Q as well which would give her the Expert Bronze title. I hope that this year she will also qualify for Nationals. It would be nice to compete at Nationals with her before she is a Veteran dog, although she is not showing any signs of slowing down yet so I may just leave her in Specials even after she turns seven.

But I guess we'll see soon how the season goes. Our first trial is at Morning Star in Kingston, Ontario, the weekend of 14/15 March. Hope we see you there!