Monday, May 10, 2010

Happy Trial Day

The Mother's Day trial went well.  We arrived home and Meredith had baked some cinnamon buns, so I quickly scarfed two of those down before sitting down to look at the videos we had taken of some of our runs.
Big mistake, should have watched the videos first.  Why is it that when I look in the mirror, I look 10-15 lbs lighter than I look in those videos?  Most discouraging, and now those buns have just added another pound to .....my buns.  Note to self, wear a darker shirt,  as dark colours are supposed to be slimming?  Also note to self, your posture sucks, get those shoulders back and stand up tall.  Of course I could pretend that because the video was filmed from above, it made me look shorter and wider (hoping?).  If that's what I really look like, well it's kinda disappointing, as my mirror says different, or maybe I'm only seeing what I want to see? Okay, rant over.

We were pretty happy with how things went a the trial.  Luna can be quite reactive to other dogs, especially if one stares at her, and she seemed better yesterday.  Larry had his first introduction to the world of being whistled off the course really quickly in Snooker.  He was beating himself up over that one for a while.  Hey, he got 9 points at least, some get a big fat zero.  Snooker is a 'red' jump, obstacle of choice, 'red jump', obstacle of choice, etc. , not 'red' jump, obstacle, 'red' jump, 'red' jump. Watch that run here.

Luna with Larry in her jumpers run took down a bar when he did a rear cross and she looked back at him, and then at the end of the course she ran under the tire.  That is a reoccurring thing with her, the running under the tire instead of jumping through it.  For the rest of the trial she did it right though, yay!  In her standard run she bailed off the dog walk half way down.  We couldn't figure that one out until  we looked at the video in slow motion and saw that she glanced back at the judge and then lost her footing with her back legs.  She has got to learn to keep driving straight while looking sideways at the scenery.  Larry can do that really well, she needs to take lessons from him!!   Watch that run here

I took her in Gamblers, my fave class!  She had a great opening, doing a very difficult mini gamble, and accumulating the most points of her whole class.  Unfortunately it fell apart in the closing, and she didn't get the final gamble.  Watch that run here

I was doing the scribe's job in one ring, and missed my walk through in the other ring. (not that they wouldn't have let me have one later)  Larry went and walked the course, so then we decided to switch and I would do his class with Luna and he would run Jake.  He thought he had it all figured out, but things kind of fell apart when he got in there, and Jake took quite a few 'wrong' obstacles.  I was lucky with Luna and got a 'Q' (qualifying round) in Starters Standard, so now she moves up to Advanced and got her Agility Dog of Canada title.  She did play games with me on the a-frame and dog walk contacts though. And thankfully she had a great call off so I managed to stop her from entering the tunnel before doing the weave poles correctly.  Watch that run here  That is not me yelling 'tunnel' and 'chute', it is someone in the other ring.

With Jake, I got three Q's out of four, with some nice runs.  Most of the time, it seems it has really come together with Jake.  Kind of fell apart though in the opening of Gamblers.  I always try the mini gamble, but for some reason we weren't gelling on that one.  Doesn't 'out scramble' mean I'm supposed to take the close tunnel? Gamblers run

Here is Jake's Jumpers run  The dog shrieking in the background is Luna.  She is okay until she hears Jake barking, and then the shrieking starts.

We had a pretty good day, and hopefully will get in one more trial before the end of the month.

2 comments:

  1. Nice!
    Congrats LUNA, Agility Dog of Canada!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Quite amazing - never have seen before so glad you posted the videos. Congratulations on a great day. And all that running - deserved some treats!

    ReplyDelete

I love to get comments, so don't be shy!