PucciNPoni
Well-Known Member
Yesterday was our first ever Agility comp - and despite the fact that I've trained for 18 months, that I've competed in lots and lots of various other disciplines (with dogs, horses, team sports etc) I was a nervous wreck. Two weeks ago I chopped off her topknot so that's the showing more or less finished and we're now giving agility a proper go. eeek!
In training and in theory weave poles were the one thing I wanted to really crack before setting off to do a comp - and over winter we did lots of practice at home and in the training classes it was so very solid so I got talked in to (without a whole lot of arm twisting, but I was still nervous) doing a local KC show.
We did two jumping classes, not feeling quite up to all the contact stuff as we've not really practiced much in the past six months. We did graded 1-4 and combined 1-7
G1-4 was a straightforward serpentine with the weave as the third obstacle and for me no change of hand as I'd opted a slightly longer route (for me) around a jump so that I wouldn't have to send her in to a tunnel on the "wrong" hand as that's something always stumps us.
So sit stay was good, got to the weave and about the 4th pole she just stopped dead head down sniff sniff sniff sniff (never done that before lol) so backed her out *with a fair amount of time wasted on calling and calling and calling * and then went at it again and she did it beautifully. The rest of the course was foot perfect and because it wasn't clear and the fact that it was a fair amount of time wasted, I expected to be an also ran. However, we won!
The combined 1-7 class was the exact same jump/obstacle lay out but the number order changed, so instead of the weave being number 3, it was more like number 8 - the first two jumps and then have to call the dog off the weave to wing wrap over to the box and then up to the corner, turn and then weave on the right hand (which is sometimes tricky) but by the time we got there and the fact I called her off the weave earlier, and perhaps the 30 deg temperatures, we had a wee brain fart and came out of the weave. Had another go and another run out half way along. So I suspect the second time I just didn't gee her up enough and just lost the forward momentum. Earned our first (and probably not the last lol) E as I decided to just skip the weave and run the rest of the course which was, foot blinkin perfect.
Alice has earned a shiny rosie and lovely wee trophy and I earned a crackin sun burn.
But we will be back
In training and in theory weave poles were the one thing I wanted to really crack before setting off to do a comp - and over winter we did lots of practice at home and in the training classes it was so very solid so I got talked in to (without a whole lot of arm twisting, but I was still nervous) doing a local KC show.
We did two jumping classes, not feeling quite up to all the contact stuff as we've not really practiced much in the past six months. We did graded 1-4 and combined 1-7
G1-4 was a straightforward serpentine with the weave as the third obstacle and for me no change of hand as I'd opted a slightly longer route (for me) around a jump so that I wouldn't have to send her in to a tunnel on the "wrong" hand as that's something always stumps us.
So sit stay was good, got to the weave and about the 4th pole she just stopped dead head down sniff sniff sniff sniff (never done that before lol) so backed her out *with a fair amount of time wasted on calling and calling and calling * and then went at it again and she did it beautifully. The rest of the course was foot perfect and because it wasn't clear and the fact that it was a fair amount of time wasted, I expected to be an also ran. However, we won!
The combined 1-7 class was the exact same jump/obstacle lay out but the number order changed, so instead of the weave being number 3, it was more like number 8 - the first two jumps and then have to call the dog off the weave to wing wrap over to the box and then up to the corner, turn and then weave on the right hand (which is sometimes tricky) but by the time we got there and the fact I called her off the weave earlier, and perhaps the 30 deg temperatures, we had a wee brain fart and came out of the weave. Had another go and another run out half way along. So I suspect the second time I just didn't gee her up enough and just lost the forward momentum. Earned our first (and probably not the last lol) E as I decided to just skip the weave and run the rest of the course which was, foot blinkin perfect.
Alice has earned a shiny rosie and lovely wee trophy and I earned a crackin sun burn.
But we will be back
