Monday, May 10, 2010

Another Blustery Agility Day

On Sunday, we headed up to Pinetop for a DOCNA agility trial. Couldn't think of a better way to spend my Mother's Day than doing agility with the Wonder Dogs! Despite the incredible winds once again,both Kaylie & Conor did fantastic. Kaylie Q'd in 4 out of 5 of her runs. The only run she didn't qualify in was Trigility. The gamble portion of the run included the dog walk. Kaylie and contacts, especially at a distance, don't generally go together. But my teammates didn't seem to mind - they didn't want to even try it, so . . . Kaylie almost got the contact, but not quite. But she did Q in both of her Standard runs, her Strategic Time Gambler run and her Jumpers run. Every trial is getting better and better with Conor. Although he only Q'd in 2 of his 5 runs, all of his runs were beautiful. In Trigility, our team had too many faults (including one off course from Conor) - but that was to be Conor's ONLY off course for the weekend. Yay! In Strategic Time Gambles, we were just .94 seconds over time, and then in his second Standard run, he barely missed the dog walk contact. But other than those little mistakes, Conor had some great runs! He placed 2nd in both runs he Q'd in, placing ahead of Kaylie!

We have one more agility trial in a couple of weeks, and then that's it for a while. Hoping to go to Utah for an AKC trial in July!
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Kaylie - The True Wonder Dog

At our last DOCNA (Dogs on Course in North America) agility trial in Prescott, Kaylie did fantastic! We are trying to be the first team to earn the MEX (Merit of Excellence) who started in the Beginner level. We are getting VERY close. All the other teams that have earned the MEX were grandfathered in at higher levels. Kaylie was just starting her agility career when DOCNA was created, so we had no choice but to start at the beginning. And as it is, I believe there are under 20 teams that have even earned the MEX to this point.

Well, going into the trial at Prescott, we needed 2 Specialist Gamblers legs and 2 Specialist Standard legs. In DOCNA, there are two types of Gamblers runs -- Traditional and Strategic Timed Gamblers. Unfortunately, we have only earned 3 Traditional Gamblers legs -- one from the Beginner class, one from the Intern class and one from the Specialist class. All the other Gamblers legs have come from the Strategic Time Gamblers. So, I knew going in that the chance of getting that Traditional Gamblers leg on Saturday was slim. We walked into the ring, and I knew Kaylie was on fire and ready to go. The Gamblers class is usually the first class of the trial, and Kaylie is usually absolutely wild in the first run. Well, this was no different. She was incredibly fast, and I was not -- I kept getting in her way, and things just fell apart. At 30 seconds, the buzzer rang, which meant I had to get to the gamble portion of the course. I sent her over the jump to the tunnel -- she took the wrong end of the tunnel, then came right back to me over the wrong jump and that was the end of that. No MEX for us this weekend. BUT, she did qualify in the two Standard runs she needed, getting First place both times, and she got her Strategic Timed Gamblers leg on Sunday, earning a Second place. Wooo hooo Kaylie!!! Out of 10 runs over the weekend, we qualified in 8 of them, placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd in all but one run -- our Jumpers run on Sunday. I got lost on the course and just got confused. Luckily, Kaylie can read the numbers on the cones (that's the only explanation I can come up with) because she ran the right course despite my mess ups! Hence the name "Wonder Dog." So we still Q'd, but got 6th place. Still, not too bad!!

So, our next DOCNA trial will be in Pinetop the end of August. Hopefully we'll get our MEX there! Just one Gambler leg to go.