Danes Can Q: CRAC AKC Agility June 11

Today we got to go play AKC agility. Our friends, Rachel and Lindsay, were there with us, too, so good times all around. The trial was hosted by a great club in the area, Columbia River Agility Club (who also happens to have nice new title ribbons). I'll take a picture tomorrow, Amy! Of course we're not due for another title other than our MXJ2. Does that count? ;-)

The weather was perfect for big dogs running. Just the right temperature to prevent their muscles from getting too cold but not too warm to make them overheat. I brought a box fan anyway although we never used it. We were entered in just Standard and JWW and the run order was tall to small but Excellent JWW was supposed to be the last class of the day in one of the rings. It started out looking like it would be a long day, mostly due to arriving so early to get a crating space. Once that was done we had to wait through Fast then we had Standard. In the meantime we visited, watched some runs, and relaxed. Oh, and reveled in how wonderful the courses looked for the day!

Standard

There was really nothing on this course not to like - although the Dobie handlers disagreed. The lines were clean; the turns smooth; we only had one tunnel; and, the time was generous. The SCT was 64 seconds for 24" dogs. I planned on running up the inside for 1-4 and had walked both a front cross after 4 but with a pull over 5 as well as maintaining my inside line and handling from the right until the teeter. That's the way I kept it. I chose a quick front cross at the end of the teeter into the weaves so I was in position with the table. A quick switch back to the right for 9-11 set us up well for the tunnel. I knew coming out of the tunnel I would need to stick close to the end of the dog walk and call her so she would know where I was. From there it was a matter of making the contact on the dog walk and running cross-course in the of jumps to the last stretch. I used our stand by "flip" at #17 to turn her into the final stretch. Unfortunately I didn't give the tunnel enough credit to be a draw and "trusted" (Translation: mistakenly handled) that my move in a different direction would draw Vegas. I was wrong; oh well. We knocked the double bar. She couldn't have run better though. Her time was 50.57 and probably could have been a smidge under 50 seconds had I not mishandled and had to call her back off the tunnel and over the double. Very proud of my girl.

JWW
The Jumpers course was nice, too. In fact, walking the course everyone kept wondering where the tricks were and were they missing anything. Yes, it was a nicely laid out, smooth course. Fun!

It was warming up a little bit by then but not too bad. Our run order was quite similar to what we'd had for Standard with Harry Potter running just one dog before us. Thanks, Lindsay, for videoing for both of our JWW runs. I started off on Vegas' right again. I set her up with 1 and 2 in her sights but quite a ways back off the jump. I wanted to give us some room for speed build up. It worked well and she was moving really nice. I kept to the same side to #6 and planned to flip her to the #7 triple. Fortunately the turn was wide enough to give her ample room to collect her feet to clear the jump and once she was landing safely I moved out toward the weaves. I called the weaves twice and she nailed them beautifully. Into the tunnel and I was feeling like we were in the home stretch. Wow was she moving. I wasn't too worried about her going for anything else out of the tunnel. I moved out toward #17 and treated the final jumps like a straight line. For her they really were and she finished beautifully. The SCT was 46, pretty generous I thought for a JWW course that ran as smoothly. Vegas' time? A totally sweet 36.51. Nine MACH points and MXJ leg #20! Sooo proud of my girl and she was soooo happy!