AKC Agility, Kiln, MS

Grace earns her NAP title

Grace and I spent 3 days in Kiln, MS running agility this weekend.  We drove back and forth.

Friday - Grace didn't get the Open FAST send.  She Qd in Novice Standard to earn her title.  We also picked up our first Q in Open JWW.

Saturday - The schedule was 3 JWW classes followed by 3 Standard classes.  We were done early in the day (noonish).  Tracey was running 4 dogs which I filmed.  Grace waited in her crate between runs.... TOOOOOO much crate time for her.  She was wild and frantic when she got to the start line.  Based on her poor start line jumping form Saturday we have decided I need to run with her from the start line to keep the first few bars up.  Grace had a disasterous go at Open Standard as well as Open JWW.

Sunday - Tracey and I took advantage of some down time for us on Sunday by letting Kayak and Grace get a long walk with off-lead playtime.  As a result of our strategy change Grace's runs were MUCH improved on Sunday.  In fact she almost had a Q in Open JWW (2 refusals) but she has now broken her teeter/dogwalk obstacles again in Open Standard.  Darn it - I thought these would be fixed for good by now!

Take aways from this weekend:

• Run from start line with Grace to minimize frantic jumping form.
• Let Grace tromp and snoop in field if possible between runs.  Play some fetch with her between runs as well.
• My handling plan for her is working if she isn't frantic.  No off courses on Sunday.  Keep up the use of "right", "left", "around", etc.
• Practice teeter, dogwalk, weave poles, and rear crosses before our next trials in Februrary.  (April will be here soon and agility season over; therefore, we are trying to be a TEAM for the next few trials.)

On a side note, Bern decided to re-live his younger years by stealing items off the kitchen counters.  He ate several bananas and chewed up numerous other items including some cups for the LCCOC holiday party.  He had not stolen food of the kitchen counter in YEARS but he was frustrated he didn't get to come with mom over the weekend.  As a result we have had to retrieve several chewed kitchen items from the backyard and rehome them in the trash.  At least the next few weekends he is coming with me to obedience trials so the counter bandit (aka Banana Boy) won't be left home alone!