We went to Paws 4 Fun Agility's first trial this past weekend. They are a new club in the area and are located only about an hours drive from my house. They also host the K9 Kup that Keltic and I take part in, This is their first year at this location, last year they used fields that belonged to another club for the K9 Kup so they didn't host any sanctioned competitions. I wasn't sure about entering this trial as we were just getting back from our vacation and neither Beckett or Keltic had done any agility in weeks, nearly a month for Keltic. I thought they might be absolutely crazy.
Saturday was Advanced and Starter events. I entered Keltic in Advanced Gambler, Starter Standard and Starter Snooker. First up was Advanced Gambler, I thought this run would be just to give Keltic a run where he could just blow off some energy. Surprisingly he ran well and although he didn't do the mini gamble, he did the final Gambler, where he had to get out to a jump, stay out to take a tunnel and then on to a final jump. It was his first Advanced Gamblers Q.
The next run was the Starter Std, I thought he had missed all of his contacts, the little monkey made no effort what so ever to slow down when I said target. It turned out that he had at least touched every contact zone. The only faults he had was for getting off the table. Something caught his attention when he got on the table and he just had to get off and sniff. He did get the best run for all regular dogs in this event as he had the fewest faults.
Next was the Starter Snooker, Keltic needed a Q in this run for his Starter Games title. I planned a course that used all four reds and was fairly smooth and I just hoped he wouldn't take down any bars. We did the first red and I got him in the tunnel. The judge was standing near the end of the tunnel, I think that helped Keltic get a little better line for the next jump. I told him to target on the dog walk and this time the monkey leaped off. The rest of the course ran really nice. The dog walk was the last obstacle of the close, I hoped that he would hit the yellow, if he didn't we would be one point short for a Q. This time Keltic was a good boy and slowed down when I told him to target and waited until I gave him his release to get off the dog walk.
We had to wait until the next day to get our title ribbon as the club forgot to bring the box with the title ribbons to the field. I was okay with that since I was back on Sunday for Beckett's runs.
I told Beckett that he had to live up to his little brother but Beckett had other ideas and wasn't about to let Keltic show him up. Beckett's first run was a Standard, it wasn't very pretty. I had changed shoes from the day before and they didn't have a lot of grip on the wet grass. As a result, I got behind Beckett a couple times so he started spinning but luckily each time he did we had enough space to get him set up again for the next obstacle without incurring any refusals. Pretty or not it was a Q, the course was 172 yards and the course time was 59 seconds and Beckett ran it in 46.51.
The next run was another Standard. This one ran really nice. There were places where I could have done a better job in handling. Before the dog walk I called Beckett in a bit too hard and the front cross before the A-frame was late but both times Beckett saved me. This course wheeled a 177 yards with a course time of 61 seconds. Beckett ran the course in 40.32 seconds. Two runs, two Q's, one last run to go.
The last run was a Masters Snooker. We like Snooker but it is very unforgiving in the close anyway, as soon as you fault you're done. But in the opening there are no refusals so we can try things that I wouldn't do in a Standard course. I planned for Beckett a course with two sets of weaves in the opening so we started on the far side and did obstacle 3 then the back red to the weaves, then the red jump near the 7 obstacle and back to the weaves then on to the close. It ran great. Beckett did the course I had planned in 48.92 seconds getting 45 points. You need to accumulate at least 40 points in a 55 seconds to Q.
What a weekend! Six runs, five Q's, five best runs! Keltic got his first title and with a five fault Std, his second agility title looks like it won't be too far away. Beckett now only needs one more Standard Q for his Bronze Expert Standard title and for Bronze Award of Merit. Looking forward to this weekend.
