Four New Titles - AKC Agility Aug.16-17, 2008

Another AKC Agility trial at New Hope Farms in Port Jervis, NY, this time hosted by Monticello Kennel Club...my favorite site, 19 miles from home :-)

Token & Dandy both did well, with Dandy bringing home the most ribbons. Token qualified both days in Open FAST to finish his Open FAST title! We had a couple of rough runs & a couple of good ones with minor errors in Open JWW & Excellent Standard. So he came home with 2 Q's and 2 Blue ribbons.
Dandy qualified in 5 out of his 6 classes, and finished 3 titles. He finished his Open Standard title with a 3rd place on Saturday (we had a wrong course, but still qualified) and made his debut in Excellent Standard on Sunday...a wrong course at a dogwalk/tunnel discrimination, but the rest was beautiful! I was already at the next obstacle by the time he finished the weaves, and also while he completed the Aframe, it was so cool to be able to handle him with the independent obstacle performance.
He finished his Novice FAST title with a 2nd place on Saturday, and got his first leg in Open FAST with a 1st place on Sunday! He qualified both days in Open JWW, with a 3rd place (a refusal since I momentarily forgot the course) and a 1st place, and finished his Open JWW title!

It's tough running the two of them, I either have ring conflicts, or just a few dogs in between them...but all in all, a good weekend with a few Q's, a few titles, and lots of fun runs.

Dandy Makes His Debut in USDAA Advanced

On August 2-3, 2008, we attended a USDAA Agility Trial in Westfield, MA, hosted by All Dogs LEAP Into Fun Agility. The trial site was a fairgrounds, which worked out really well as I just parked my car in one of the open-sided barns and was sheltered from both sun & rain...which was nice considering we had thunder storms on Saturday afternoon. The trial ended up having 3 rings instead of 2, with the 3rd being quite a hike from the others. So running 2 dogs in 3 rings, with 10 runs on Saturday & 8 runs on Sunday, I had alot of conflicts & found myself unprepared more than once. To further complicate matters, I turned my ankle in Dandy's Advanced Gamblers run on Sunday morning, and besides spending a good part of my run on the ground, I had a hard time running the rest of the day. Just a minor sprain but not good for agility...
Dandy had some very nice runs, earning legs in Advanced Gamblers (2nd pl), Advanced Jumpers (1st pl) and two legs in Advanced Snooker (a 2nd and a 1st pl). He had a bar down in each Standard class. He ran clean in Pairs but our partner had some faults so no Q. I'm very pleased with how Dandy is progressing, he is young & still learning to 'find his stride' in competitions. But considering he just turned 21 months old yesterday, I could not ask for any more than he's been giving me :-)
Token came home with one Q, in Sunday's Master Gamblers, with a 2nd place. The gamble was 4 jumps, including a spread (triple), and an off-course tunnel calling him, yet he executed it beautifully & smoothly. He had some very nice runs with just one error. Contacts remained solid but for one AFrame (his front feet hit the ground and THEN his back feet hit the zone, so we were faulted); he had just one weave error all weekend, in Saturday's gamble. All of his runs on Sunday were affected by my sprained ankle, so we did the best we could.
I'm still working on getting my ankle back into shape, hoping I can run at the trial next weekend!