What I Did on My Summer Vacation by Liam

We tooks a break from gility and hoophoop classes for da summer. We went on a long camping trip to some place called Prince Edward Island. I don't know what an island is but we gots to go wading and sawed some horses. When we gots back from da camping trip, Mum and me did some hoophoop training and she made some videos of me and her doing hoophoops. Mum sent our videos to be judged and I gots a medal for how good I did! Mum did good too.

Mum went away and left us at home with Aunt Maureen and Uncle Steve. Mum went to some place called France. She'll tell you's all more about dat adventure later. A few days after she got home, we went to Guides Canins for a hoophoop trial. I gots my Beginner Hoop Dog title, that was the last Beginner title I needed for da Beginner Collective title. I'se now in Novice in all da hoophoop games. 

We also joined a bunch of other Shelties in an agility league called the K9 Kup. We only gots to go to two out of the four matches. Our Sheltie team was called da Barky Bunch. We was at the last match just this past weekend. I didn't do so well but our team did. Us Shelties won First Place overall!

Mum and I are back at hoophoop classes; we'll start gility classes later. Mum didn't want to pay for da classes as we was going to  miss some. We has another gility trial dis Saturday and we's going to have some fessional photos done da next weekend.

So dats' what I did on my summer vacation!

Bronze Hoopers Skills

Over the past few weeks, Liam and I have been working on a new skills program Canine Hoopers Canada (CHC) has instituted. 

The skills program has five levels: First Steps, Pre-Bronze, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each level has a series of exercises that you teach and, then once you can do the skill, you take a video of you and your dog doing that exercise. There's also a written portion to each skill level but you can use the rule book to find the answer, so no trick questions. 

You can start the program wherever you like.  When I looked at the first two levels there were exercises that we once knew but that I would have to re-teach so I decided we would start at Bronze. That, and because, Bronze focused more on actual Hoopers sequences and moves rather than foundation skills.

Each of the exercises for the Bronze skills weren't all that long but with the weather being so hot and humid and having to get a good video that showed both you and your dog, I was only able to do one or two sequences a day.  Some of the exercises said you could use a ground target so I was using our treat ball, then I asked if that was permitted and got the reply that it could only be a target and not the reward. I was, however, allowed to throw the reward after the skill was completed. It meant though I had take new videos of some of the skills we had already completed. 

Then came the hard part, you have to take all those video clips and put them into one video to be submitted to the CHC where an assessor (a qualified judge) would review all of your skills. Next time, I'm going to put the videos into a folder and rename the ones I'll use for the submission with the skill name so it will be much easier then to put together the final video.

Video of our Bronze Skills Test

Its took about 10 days from the time I submitted my video but then I received an e-mail saying that I had incorrectly performed one sequence. The assessor told me I could just redo that one skill and submit another video. I struggled a bit because I thought the test was more about the dog being able to perform the obstacles with the handler at a distance but it turned out they also wanted to see consistent (a certain) handling from me as well.  

In the video, in the part labelled Front Cross L to R, I have Liam do the three hoops directing him only with my left hand.  What they needed to see was a change of side also known as a change of hands. The program is so new that I didn't even know whether I was to submit the new video to the assessor or complete the online form again. I submitted it to the assessor and shortly afterwards received an email with our assessment report. In the video below, you'll see now that I release Liam with my right hand then direct him with my left.

Video Front Cross Right Hand to Left

Today, we got our title certificate by email with the notification that our medal is in the mail.

We'll be excited to get our medal. Sure, hope Canada Post doesn't lose it. Ours will look like the one on the left.

It's a really nice program. You can work at your own speed. You don't need a big facility or a lot of equipment. And you get a nice medal for your efforts.

Snookered

We went to our first outdoor agility trial of the season yesterday.  It was overcast with a breeze but not too cold. You needed a jacket when you weren't running but it was warm enough to run without one. I brought Teddy along so he didn't have to stay home by himself yet again. I don't think he much cared for the collapsible crate, next time I'll bring the really big crate and they can both hang out together. 

Liam was in four events starting with an Advanced Gamblers. In Gamble, you plan your own opening to collect points, each type of obstacle has a point value. The judge can include mini gambles that you can do from behind a line to earn double the points.We had an opening that included a send to a tunnel, Liam got it twice. The main Gamble also had a send to a tunnel but Liam thought "been there, done that" and incurred a refusal on the tunnel. 

Our next event was an Advanced Snooker, if you've read my blog for while, you know Liam has an eyesight issue that makes it hard for him to judge the take off point for a jump and consequently he takes down quite a few jumps. In this Advanced Snooker, obstacles 5 and 6 were combinations and both used the same jump as part of the combination. Obstacle 7 was the teeter and I knew Liam was unlikely to do it so I had to plan a course that gave him the points he needed before we had to do number 7.

Advanced Snooker

I had planned a bit of a risky course. I was using obstacle 5 twice and obstacle 6 once before running the closing of the course, obstacles 2 through 7 as numbered. Liam needed to complete obstacle 5 successfully in the close to have enough points for a qualifying score. That meant he had to do jump 5b four times without knocking the bar, and really he couldn't knock any bars or we wouldn't have enough points. We had a nice clean run and Liam had just put his feet on the teeter when the buzzer sounded for time. He needed 32 points for a qualifying score and we got 39. It was the only event of the day where he didn't knock a bar down.

Our next event was a Standard run. Liam refused the dog walk so again I put my finger in his collar and just coaxed him along, no pressure, just verbal encouragement.  We didn't get to the teeter before the time ran out so after the trial was over for the day I asked one of the club members if I could put Liam on the teeter. He did it just fine, once on leash and once by himself. I should ask at the end of every trial if I can do that. Our last event was an Advanced Jumpers, it didn't look nice on the course map but walked and ran fairly nicely for Liam and me. Some of the handlers of fast dogs had issues with off courses because the dogs didn't turn tightly. Liam seemed rather pokey but our time was quite respectable, we had an allowed course time of 60 seconds and we ran the course in 47.89 seconds but unfortunately we had one bar down.

I think Liam was a little snookered by the time we did Jumpers but we did have our Snooker Q so I was happy with that. Liam now has two Advanced Gambles and two Advanced Snooker, one more Q in each of those games and he'll move to Masters.  

The trial ran quickly as there were two judges and they used two rings so no waiting around for course builds and walk throughs. We were home by around 3:30 pm usually it's much closer to dinner time. Our next agility trial is on 6 June, and we have a virtual Hoopers trial on 30 May.

There was a photographer at the trial. She takes nice photos. I am planning to buy some but it's so hard to chose. Which would you chose? Link to Liam's pictures below.

Znlens Photos - Liam

Don't Blink!

Where Liam and I went for the Hoopers trial, they use surveillance cameras so that means you can buy  videos of your runs. Since we haven't been doing Hoopers for very long, I bought photos, which I've already posted, and I also bought the videos of our runs.

In dog agility, runs usually allow about a minute and half, but most times dogs are much faster; I would say on average though you get about a minute in the ring. In Hoopers, you get points for a clean run as long as you are under 90 seconds. I don't think I saw a dog go that slow. Liam's slowest run was just over 22 seconds and his fastest run just over 17 seconds.

Don't blink, you might miss it!

If the videos aren't available in your browser, I've added a link to the YouTube videos of the same runs. Just click the link below.

Video of Liam Beginner Hoopers

Video of Liam Beginner Tungo

Video of Liam Beginner Parkour

Wordless Wednesday - Hoopers Photos

 

Hoop, Hoop

Liam and I did another virtual Hoopers trial the week starting from 22 Mar. For virtual trials, you can practice the runs before taking and submitting your videos. 

There are four games now in Hoopers. In three of the games you can run with your dog or you can try to do part of the course from a distance. Doing the distance challenges earns you more points towards your titles.  This past year they added a new game called Challenge, in that one you have to stay in the Handler's Box for the whole run. It's only offered at Novice level and above. Liam is still in Beginners although that is now an optional level. 

At this virtual trial, we ran a Hoopers course that only has hoops and some barrels, a Parkour course, that has all of the obstacles permitted by Canine Hoopers Canada and a Tungo course that has only barrels and tunnels but in Beginners uses one hoop for the start. 

Liam got three clear runs and we got the easier distance challenge in each run so he got 10 points for each run. Five for the clean run and five bonus points. 

Liam's Hoopers Run

Liam's Parkour Run

Liam's Tungo Run

We have a physical trial at the end of April and there's another virtual trial at the end of May. Titles are based on points, in two of the games Liam now has 40 points; you need 50 points for the Beginners title in each game. I think Liam will be able to get those titles at the next two trials.

Then we'll be able to say Whoop, whoop or should I say Hoop, Hoop!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

A lady I know through agility is very crafty. She makes the most beautiful Ukrainian Easter eggs. This week she helped a few of us make something a little easier. We made quilt balls using ribbons we'd won in our dog sports. 

Here's my Quilt Ribbon ball.

Whoop Whoop

I've been doing Hoopers classes with Liam for about a year now. Canine Hoopers Canada (CHC) has been doing virtual trials since there aren't a lot of qualified judges yet and so they can build the organization by getting people to play who otherwise wouldn't be able to. For the first time, they included a smaller space option that could be done at the facility where we take our classes. There were six events, two of each of the games. I entered Liam in one of each, two other students also entered so we got together Friday evening to set up and run the courses. 

With CHC, you can run the courses with your dog like you do in agility and get a qualifying score. Each qualifying score is awarded points and titles are point based. Each course will have distance challenges using either a Challenge line (CL) or a Distance Handler Box (DHB). If you have a clean run and have successfully completed a distance challenge you are awarded extra points, so the titles will come faster if you can work at a distance. 

Our first run was a Hoopers course. It had two Challenge Lines, a 10 point line and an easier 5 point line. Not sure you can see the lines in the image, the 10 point line runs across from the number 2, the 5 point line is just above the number 1. I didn't think Liam would be able to get out to the barrel at obstacle 6 and 13 with me behind the 10 point line so I ran it from behind the 5 point line. You can click on the link below to see our run. I did try it from the 10 point line, twice, and while Liam did go out the the barrel for obstacle 6, he wouldn't go back out again for obstacle 13. 

Beginner Hoopers 1

Our next run was a Parkour, very similar to Hoopers but it uses all the equipment permitted by CHC so there was a gate and a bottomless tunnel as well as barrels and hoops. This course had a handlers box; the judge had allowed two options for extra points, run the whole course from the box or just get the first three obstacles while you were in the box. You can't send your dog from the box to the first obstacle to start the course so your dog does need a sit stay to let you lead out to the box. Let me tell you getting obstacle three while in the box was harder than it looked as Liam wanted to wrap the barrel or he took obstacle 4 turning in the wrong direction. 

Beginner Parkour 1

Our last run was one called TunGO, it uses just barrels, tunnels and gates, with a hoop as the starting obstacle. The other students, who were with me, were doing all six runs so it was getting rather late. As a result, I decided to not even try this one from the distance lines but just run it with Liam.  Again the distance lines are not really visible in the picture. The 5 point line runs from obstacle 3 to obstacle 6. The 10 point line is about half way back from that towards obstacles 2 and 7. Perhaps you'll see them in the video as we were using red and blue plastic tubing. 

Beginner TunGo 1 

You're allowed to practice the courses at a virtual trial, For our Hoopers and TunGO runs, it was the first time Liam did either course. I did try the Hoopers two more times afterwards to try and do it from the ten point Challenge Line. For the Parkour, Liam was a little high and we had to start this one three times before we got a good run. You only submit what you think are clean runs to be judged. I uploaded our runs to YouTube and put the link to each run on the virtual trial's FaceBook group and waited for them to be judged.

Whoop, whoop, Liam got a clean run on each of our courses! We also got a 5 point bonus in the Hoopers course and a 5 point bonus for the Parkour. I wasn't sure about that one, I had to move out of the box so quickly to keep him in line for the next barrel that I thought I might have stepped out too soon. 

So whoop whoop, now Liam is on his way for his Hoopers titles. For those who've seen him run agility, look how smooth and steady he runs the courses. Now we just have to work more on our distance skills. For those agility handlers out there, come give CHC a try, your agility dog will learn the obstacles quickly, they know the body language already and you can work on  distance over time. 

Short Season

We started the Spring 2017 season off with a trial at Absolute Agility. I had entered both Beckett and Keltic in three events.  Beckett had two Snooker runs and one Master Jumpers; Keltic had a Master Jumpers and then later in the day two Advanced Standards.  We got there early but the event was running late because the facility had been nearly flooded out by the spring thaw; lots of effort by the arena crew and with the sump pumps running they kept most of the arena dry. Courses still had to be modified to avoid the muddy parts of the arena. I only went on Sunday and people said things were already much better.

Beckett ran very well. He Q'd the first snooker run and if I had run the second snooker run they way I walked it he would have Q'd the second run too. I got myself in a position where I had to rear cross a tunnel and Beckett, with eyes in the back of his head, turned around in the tunnel and came back out the entrance for a refusal and a whistle from the judge.  He ran a very nice Master Jumpers too but I stopped too abruptly thinking he had committed to a tunnel but Beckett stopped too and spun getting a refusal on an otherwise clean run.

I had started out just fine but as the day wore on my Achilles tendon began to bother me. Next up was Keltic, in the second Master Jumpers.  He ran beautifully but I didn't pick him after tunnel #  12 and he got sucked into the decoy tunnel for an elimination.  My Achilles tendon by now was very painful, I did some volunteer jobs leash running and bar setting and it got progressively worse so I decided that was it. No use rupturing it I thought, as that would take ages to heal.  Poor Keltic, we arrived at 9:30 in the morning and his 34 second run was at about 4pm; all day in a crate for that.

Master Jumpers 2

 This was the course as the judge designed it but because of the muddy parts of the arena all the courses had to be flipped and tweaked. One of judges didn't have the opportunity to re-do the course maps so we had to make do with the original ones and trace them out on the backside.  The hand drawn maps gave you the flow but the tweaking in the ring meant you couldn't really decide on your handling until you walked it.

Mirror Master Jumpers 2

We had our next trial the very next Friday, only four days later. I spent the evenings icing my tendon and hoping I'd be able to run.  I had entered Beckett in 4 Steeplechase runs and Keltic in two Gamblers. Beckett needed two qualifying scores for his Silver Expert title which in Steeplechase is 50 qualifying scores. I ran the first run and my tendon did not feel great at all but we got a Q. I decided to wrap it. I had brought sports tape but forgot scissors so I used vet wrap. I hoped he would do it with only two runs but in the next run I handled one jump badly and Beckett back jumped it. The tendon felt much better wrapped. On to Steeplechase 3, this one looked nice and it ran well for us, the place where Beckett began to spin, I knew would happen. If I had been a little faster I could have gotten in a blind cross there and avoided that spinning.

Expert Silver Steeplechase Title

I pulled out of Steeplechase 4 so that I could rest my ankle a bit and so that Keltic would get his runs. Keltic ran well; I even ran out of things I had planned to do in the first opening.  The first Gamble I knew he wouldn't stay out with me on the other side of the dogwalk, but he did do a nice dogwalk so maybe the winter training was not in vain. The second Gamble we had a chance, if he would just go to the tunnel but no, he wouldn't. I have to work on getting him calm in order to do the gamble, you see when I sit him down he goes right out the first obstacle without hesitation.

Keltic Master Gamblers runs

So that's it for the 2017 spring season, I had hoped to do more before the Regional Championships in June but I have to be able to run to play agility so it's better to let the tendon heal.

Silver Award of Merit

We finished last year with Beckett only needing two more qualifying scores in Masters Standard for his Expert Silver Standard and his Silver Award of Merit.

For the first trial of 2017,  I entered him in four Masters Standards in hopes that we could get two of them.  Our first run was beautiful, we were in sync, it flowed, we danced; until the second last obstacle, the dog walk, I didn't tell Beckett to target and although he was slowing down he managed to miss the yellow contact zone.

I was really bummed as now I thought that things would go from bad to worse. It only takes that one little thing to throw you off your game.  I tried not to let it get to me as we still had three more runs to go.

Our second standard wasn't as nice. I came out of the ring thinking perhaps we had two refusals.  To make sure Beckett got out to the tunnel (obstacle 11), I pushed past the bottom of the A-frame and he came with me right into the pocket between the two obstacles but then scooted over to get into the tunnel. Then on the second weave entry, he came to a complete stop, I thought he only turned his head before he entered and did the weaves, but I wasn't sure.  I was very surprised to see that it was a Q. Poor Beckett didn't even get a jackpot for that Q.

Now we only needed one more Q, it was getting late and we had to be back the following morning for Keltic's turn.  Master Standard 3 was the course that I had liked the best when I first looked at them and I hoped that Beckett would like it too.

I worried a bit about the first few jumps and getting him into that first tunnel without any spinning.  He didn't, the only spinning we got was when my front cross after the A-frame was late. I was very nearly in his way for the weaves but Beckett saved the day with his awesome weave entry. Beckett certainly was rewarded for this run with real chicken, not just the chicken hot dogs he normally gets.

I was tired, my leg was sore, Beckett was even limping a little; we had done what we came to do so we pulled from out last run and went home.  But I think Beckett would have Q'd the last run too.

Video Silver Award of Merit run

I never thought when I started agility that I would be able to even put a championship on one of my dogs, now I have a great little dog who has his Silver Award of Merit for 25 Standard Q's and 50 Games Q's all at the Masters level.  

Way to go, Beckett!

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

Eastern Ontario Regional Agility Championships

This past weekend we went to the AAC Eastern Ontario Regional Championships. I entered both Beckett and Keltic. We didn't go to last years as the Regional Championships are also the qualifier for Nationals and since Nationals were being held out in western Canada, too far to drive; I decided to give Regionals a pass too. I entered Keltic this year as he was 4 in March by the same age Beckett had already been to two Regional events.  I wasn't too sure that Keltic was ready.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and got our shade tent all set up before heading to check in at our hotel.  After feeding the boys, we went out to dinner at an excellent Indian restaurant.  If you are ever in Kingston Ontario, check out Saber's Taste of India.

The next day was the sanctioned events, which are separate from the regional championship. I had entered Beckett in Steeplechase and Standard, and Keltic in Master Jumpers and Master Snooker.  When I took Beckett out of his crate I noticed he was limping; he seemed to walk it off but I didn't want to take any chances and I withdrew him from his events. That left me with only Keltic to run, I momentarily forgot the Jumpers course so we kind of crashed and burned there, then in Snooker I tried to get him to weave which Keltic didn't want to do, so I tried to go on to the next red jump but Keltic wanted to do the tunnel. Tweet went the judge's whistle and we were done, three obstacles and only one point. Needless to say I was very disappointed with the first day and worried about the championships.

That night I gave Beckett some warm massages and he seemed to be somewhat better. I decided that we would go event by event and if he was noticeably limping I would withdraw him from the championships.  Our first event the next day was a Standard, Beckett ran clean although we had some spinning that was luckily done outside of the refusal zones.  I watched Beckett as he walked toward me after the run and I didn't notice any limping. Keltic managed to get through the run with only 10 faults for two refusals. Amazingly, when I sent him into the weaves the second time, he got in an stayed in. I was very happy with that run.

Next up was Gamblers, Beckett had a 35 point opening and if he hadn't argued so much about the tunnel (obstacle 2 of the gamble) and the jump (obstacle 3 of the gamble), he would have gotten the main gamble as he was on the dog walk when the buzzer sounded. Keltic got a 31 point opening but wouldn't go out at all to obstacle 3.

Our last run on the Saturday was Jumpers, Beckett was clean and yet again Keltic amazed me by only getting two refusals, mostly because I couldn't keep up.

Time out chair- we really didn't need it.

When they posted Saturday's results I was very happy to see that Beckett was sitting in third place overall but was flabbergasted to see Keltic sitting in 6th place overall and that he had gotten sixth place in that Gamblers event just based on points. Beckett didn't show any signs of limping but I still gave him another warm massage back at the hotel. Cryopaks are now part of our agility bag.  We had Greek take-out on Saturday night and ate out on the back patio at the hotel that was nice as we could have a drink and not worry about driving.

On Sunday, the weather was nasty. It poured rain in the morning. I was lucky to get the dogs out for their morning business and to get the car packed up before it really poured. We did our general walk through and first event in the rain.  We had Gamblers first, the weaves were the distance obstacle, I knew neither would get that so we concentrated on opening points. Beckett was spinny and refused nearly every tunnel, luckily in gamblers you are just wasting time. Keltic was better and beat Beckett by two points.

Next up was our second Jumpers, Beckett was clean. he was running well and I was able to rear-cross without  him spinning on me. Keltic had two refusals, one because again I couldn't keep up and the other due to his inexperience. I did the same rear cross between jump 15 and 16 and where Beckett saw jump 17, Keltic read the rear cross all right but came by the jump without taking it.

Last event was Standard, Beckett only needed 38 points to qualifying for Nationals but for the aggregate results he would have to have a nice run as everyone in the top 4 was pretty close. We didn't have a stellar run getting 3 refusals for 15 faults which gave us 85 points for the run.  Keltic managed to get his weave entry but popped the weaves, he went in the second time and stayed in, he finished the run with only 5 faults, getting 95 points, again beating Beckett.. He had needed about 75 to qualify for Nationals.

4th place for Beckett and receiving Keltic's National Qualifier ribbon

I was really happy with our results overall, although a little disappointed with the Beckett's last Standard run; I changed my plan from what I had walked and I'm sure that threw us off our game. Beckett placed in 5 of 6 events and got 4th place for 10" Specials, he had gotten 5th place in 16" Regulars in 2014 so we moved up just a little.  Keltic had not only qualified for Nationals but had placed in 3 of 6 events; not bad considering I had only entered him for the experience.