Sno King AKC Trial 11-13-11

Once again, better late than never...a quick Sunday agility recap for last weekend.

Tall to Small, Vegas was running Standard and JWW. First up was Standard.

This looked like a fun course to run. I debated on handling left or right initially but it made more sense to stay back to the right and rear cross while she was in the tunnel and move out ahead of the tire. A lot of people struggled even with the same move as their dog came straight out of the tunnel instead of looking toward them. In retrospect it was probably a late verbal call. In our instance, it worked fine although I had to move quick to be out of the way for the teeter. From there I was working on the inside through the chute to the triple and back to the tunnel. I stayed on the inside with the dog walk knowing I'd beat her to the end because I wanted to front cross. That worked well and we were really moving. She nailed her weaves and I just moved out ahead and led her to the table with a dropped left shoulder and rear crossed to move around in front of the table. From there I worked on the outside of the a-frame. I had walked several ways but the line wasn't super clean on the back stretch and I didn't want to misqueue her on the jumps. So being on the outside of the a-frame my plan was to rear cross the #16 jump. Unfortunately my brain wasn't engaged or our timing was off because I did so and pulled her off #17 then caused a back jump - R & W and NQ. Bummer! We finished the course in 53.72 seconds; SCT was 66 so would have been another really nice run.

Not too far off was JWW. Here is the course map: 

The first issue here was that #1 was very close to the stall/wall at the front of the ring. There wasn't a lot of room to get started. Second, this line was so misleading to the dogs! Most of us had a little trouble in setting it up and both getting into position for jumps a couple down the way as well as properly queuing the first couple. I put Vegas on my left and as far back as possible. I figured without a lead out the best I could do was to run with her and pull hard to the right to get #2. Unfortunately that put me back a bit for #3 and while she nailed it, I could have gotten close to a refusal on #4 as I was playing catch up. All in all it worked out, though and I was able to queue her out to #4 and get back into the position necessary. I front-crossed after #6 to be in the best position for after the weaves and not to accidentally send her into the tunnel. After the weaves the plan was to pull to the #9 and "flip" back into the 180 to the tunnel. I'd meet her on the inside of the #11 and my next concern was remembering to push out hard and far enough for #15. Then we ran like the dickens for "home."

155 yards, SCT of 44; our time - 32.88. 11 MACH points and 12th place. :) A great way to end the weekend.