Tracey, Xan, Spirit, Lego, Kazee, and Storm picked up Grace and I Friday morning for a weekend of agility in not so sunny Florida. Grace was 0/5 this weekend but her run times on course are much better. I got one great set of weave poles out of her on Saturday. She was jumping better without the early take-offs. By Sunday she was so wound up that she could not slow down enough to do every pole... it was more like every other weave pole. Several folks commented on how much better she is doing which made me very glad.
Mike Loftis was there taking photos... Grace's photos from the weekend can be seen here. Grace's jumping shots look great. The weave pole photos are disappointing because she is busy barking at me and not weaving - this wasn't our pretty set of poles on Saturday morning but the not so pretty set on Saturday afternoon.
The highlight of our weekend was a 2 hour old track laid by John Runnels on Saturday. Some helpful person had found a lost glove in woods.. somehow the glove made it back to John before we started our track so we knew it was missing as the end article. With the glove cone that left 3 articles on her TDX style track. Boy was Grace awesome on that track. John was laying track on unfamiliar territory and apologized because the terrain was tougher than he had intended to select but once he started walking he was committed. While tracking Grace bounded through grasses, shrubs, and bushes that were taller than her, she plowed right through the standing water, and pushed through the brambles like a champ. She stopped dead on top of each of the 3 artilcles with no help from me. YIPPPEE for her article indication. John thinks she should give the TDX test a whirl in March... and so does her handler.
Our traveling companions came home with 2 QQs (Storm and Kazee 1 each) and Exec Jumpers Qs (Lego, Xan, and Kazee - 1 each I think). Tracey ordered a collage of weave pole shots and a Spirit Doing Agility collage to add to the dog agility collage grouping at her house. Check out the Spirit and great weave photos here. Timber, the beagle currently ranked 4th in points towards the 2011 AKC agility invitational, was also at the show. Timber runs very fast and accurate in the 16" class. On Sunday the 16" Exec Jumpes class had 1st and 2nd place beagles as ribbon winners (Timber and Lego)... we thought that was pretty cool.
