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Dahlia went to her first agility trial!

Posted : 11/11/2011 3:00:08 PM

Dahlia went to her very first agility trial last weekend. It was nerve wracking (for me, not her!) and a little bit scary but the folks there were so nice!

We did two runs each day. The first day we did something called "Wildcard" where three times during the sequence we had to choose between obstacles to take (it looked like this for anyone who cares). Dahlia and I sort of seriously flubbed this one. She didn't want to get on the dog walk! Then we did the Jumpers course (course map here), which consists of only jumps and tunnels (one of the nice things about lower level CPE courses!). Dahlia did great with this one. She completed the entire course cleanly in about 32 seconds and had no faults. She got a qualifying score and a first place ribbon for it!

The second day we did two new games. The first one was called Full House, the object of which is to make up your own course to gather up a certain number of points. You have to take some obstacles at least once, but otherwise you're just focused on getting around a course that will get you enough points in the allotted time (course map here). This one was a total and complete disaster. As it turns out, she doesn't like the contacts at this place and she doesn't have enough experience with different types of A-Frames and dog walks, so she refused to get on the A-Frame at all (when during class she runs it like it's the best thing on earth!). The second run was one called Colors. In this one they put out obstacles and have two different courses you get to choose from. They use about the same amount of obstacles and are very close in distance (one was 4 feet longer than the other). You can see the course map here. We chose to follow the squares (purple in reality). She was completely clean on this run except she was again freaked out by the A-Frame. This time she got up on it and decided that it wasn't going to happen and jumped off. The rest of the run went pretty well!

So all together she ended up with a couple first place ribbons, one second place, and a qualifying ribbon for Jumpers.

Here's Dahlia in her crate, saying "Mommy can I get out now?"

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Here's Dahlia at the end of the first day modeling her first place, second place, and qualifying ribbon (the sort of turquoise colored one).

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/crysania4/6315864667/][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6120/6315864667_13aa3d4230_z.jpg[/img][/url]

And here's Dahlia on her second run of the second day. Unfortunately, the really good run wasn't videotaped because I forgot to give my camera to someone. Oops. So here's her almost clean run. Try not to laugh at how slow she is. She is RIDICULOUSLY slow for an agility dog. We're working on this because, as you probably can see in the video, I slow down and hesitate before each jump, which causes her to do the same. In last night's class I focused on continuing to move and she was so much faster!

You can view the video here if you want to see it.

JackieG

Posted : 11/11/2011 4:29:46 PM

Congrats to you and Dahlia! She did great for her first time. :) I love the pic of her peaking out of her crate. I'm sure with more practice you'll both gain confidence and speed. I watched the vid on her almost clean run and she seemed happy. :) That's the most important thing, IMO.

rufftie

Posted : 11/11/2011 4:36:01 PM

be careful- agility is quite addictive! i'm so glad you went and had a good time. dahlia and you will get more comfortable and do better each time. i love cpe because it does make the beginner feel welcome and it is geared for you and your dog to succeed. run fast, run clean, run fun!

crysania

Posted : 11/11/2011 4:42:13 PM

Yes! She has so much fun. She can't wait to go to class and when the bag comes out or I mention "doggy class" she started following me everywhere in the apartment with a huge grin on her face. We've been training for a year and a half, which I know is a long time to get to this point! But she had little confidence in the beginning and it's taken some time to get to where we are.

With just a minor change in how I view the game, she's already starting to add a bit of speed. She'll never be a speed demon. It's just not in her and she's already around 5 1/2 years old. But we both love it and YES it is so addictive!

In all honesty I had never planned on going to a trial. We were just doing it for fun. But then I realized the trials are fun too!

shadowsgin

Posted : 11/11/2011 5:23:40 PM

I am so glad you guys had fun! Cant watch the vid right now but anytime I see Dahlia's name I have to see pics :) You are such a pretty girl Dahlia! Love the peeking out of crate pic :)

Calmwaters

Posted : 11/11/2011 7:25:35 PM

Dongrats on your win and your good time.

kpwlee

Posted : 11/11/2011 8:04:50 PM

OMG that was adorable (the video) - both of you were adorable!! Congrats and keep on enjoying it!!

oranges81

Posted : 11/11/2011 9:56:20 PM

Welcome to the addiction that is TRIALING! Maze and I did Rally O trials this summer and I'm hooked.. Sandy will be starting to trial next year in agility and a member has some how talked me in to trying Competitive Obedience over the winter. Maze is 5 now and while she was amazing at agility, she has a heart problem so we can't do that anymore. We went into Rally O blind and walked away with our title in 2 trials so don't let Dahlia's age fool you. Lol.

nymaureen

Posted : 11/11/2011 11:00:25 PM

Glad to hear that you had such fun. But wouldn't have expected anything less. It' is addicting but a healthy addiction to have. Where was the trial, as I think some friends of mine might have been there. In fact, the funniest thing is that I'm quite sure the person who is blocks the view, as she runs in front of the camera, at the very start of your video, is one of them.

crysania

Posted : 11/12/2011 7:48:35 AM

Thanks guys! Dahlia is definitely adorable. She loves doing it even if we're sort of slow and trot around the course. We'll get up to speed sometime! We did actually do the jumpers course at 32 seconds there which was a reasonable speed. Some folks were way faster (one of the other people there for the first time ran it in 19.45 seconds!) but plenty were slower.

nymaureen, this was in Skaneateles! Funny that you recognize someone in the video! There were a LOT of people there and it was so much fun. They were all so nice to me.

griffinej5

Posted : 11/15/2011 10:48:54 PM

Good job for your first time out competing Dahlia! I'm sure you'll get faster as the two of you get more confident, and especially for her, once she learns that the equipment at different places is just the same as the equipment where you train (just took Luke out to training runs this weekend at a fly ball tournament, we had licked skipping the final jumps at our home gym, but at the tournament, he was like, "what? I have to over this last one?";). When we tried agility, he was all fine with the equipment at the first place. In order to really move up, we went out to another place, and he was all weirded out on the contacts, like he'd never seen an a frame or dog walk before. The place we do fly ball runs open gym time that you can just bring your dog to practice. Maybe someone has it there too, and you could get her a little bit a of practice on different equipment?

crysania

Posted : 11/16/2011 8:44:49 AM

Our plan right now is to see if we can find some show 'n' goes in the area. There aren't many right now (going into winter as it is!) but hopefully we can get to any that are open to us and try out different equipment. We did get to a totally new venue, but the equipment was similar enough to ours that Dahlia had no problem getting on it. Now that I know it's potentially an issue, I'm going to try to address it and see how to work with it.

I can't say I really blame her with the equipment at this place. It wasn't rubberized and the dog walk had NO slats. Several fast-moving dogs who ran at the dog walk slipped getting on it and one dog hit it and slipped and fell right off (scary moment!) but was ok. A lot of dogs were slipping coming down the A Frame. So I can't blame her for getting that beneath her feet and thinking "no way!" and getting right off.

crysania

Posted : 11/17/2011 9:10:46 PM

I just wanted to add this video from class tonight. The past two weeks I've worked on not hesitating and just RUNNING and lo and behold, Dahlia is moving faster and better! Here was a sequence we did in class. Just jumps and a tunnel.

You can see the video here. (Video opens in a new window)