August CPE Agility

Last Friday and Sunday the girls and I did some CPE Agility.   After how sick Perri had gotten from the last trial, I wanted to take special precautions with her.   I do not know what caused her to get sick, but I knew there were some factors I wanted to avoid.   Stress, and heat.   Since I have been trialing Perri regularly in agility, she has loved her down time in my car away from the noisy crating areas.   She loves a noisy trial, and runs better in the ring for it, but she seems to need her recharge time.  Both days of the trial I primarily kept Perri crated in the car, only keeping her in the building if she would be running soon.  There was a really nice breeze both days, though it was quite hot - and with sun shading all over my vehicle and fans, I feel like Perri was actually cooler than she would have been inside the trial.   And also much more able to relax.

We started with Jumpers - no video for either girl.   Molly and I had a really beautiful run together that I wish I had on video.   Super flawless, no bobbles and a really nice fast time!  That meant 15 Qs in Level 5 Jumpers so Jumpers Champion title for Molly.
Perri was off like a shot and zooming in the dirt and barking at me, so that was the end of that!

Jackpot was next.   This was an interesting Non Traditional where when the buzzer rang, you had to take three obstacles in a 180 direction.   Sort of weird!   You can see in the video what I did with Molly.   Jump, Tunnel and then back to a tunnel (collecting her around a bar jump since we were only allowed to do three obstacles in our closing - and the single bar jump she took for our '2" was just poor timing.)   I did also get a chance to "correct" her only blown A-frame of the weekend, and there were no more after that.   Really a good opportunity to be able to do that!

Perri ran just about the same plan, but she actually earned a bit more points since we did not eat up time repeating the A-frame.   She was springy and sassy, especially when I asked her to wrap around the jump combo twice - but she qualified and earned her Level 4 Strategy title!   

Two rounds of Standard next for both girls.   They both NQd the first one, and qualified in the second round.   Yay!

CL4-S and Jumpers Champion.

Sunday we started with Snooker and I again lost Perri to the zoomie monster.  Molly did good but I'm pretty disappointed in my handling and we ate up a lot of time with her stressing down from my mistake and later more stress in the weaves.

Standard was next and Molly did such a super job on a course that was so not easy for her!  Starting with a 90 degree turn off of the Aframe, the course came around to the Aframe a second time with another tempting wrong course!   Molly followed me so well, got no weave faults.   It was a really lovely run - again so sad to not have it on video!

Perri ran the course as well and tried her best but ran wide around a jump and got a wrong course - oh well!  Her first set of weaves, though she faulted them initially, was the nicest she has ever weaved at this trial location.   So, that's cool!   After the jump run out she got a little uppity and sassy, she was on the verge of more zoomies.   I just love her speed after the second set of weaves, despite the 90+ degree day...she was feeling good!

Wildcard next, videos of both dogs.   I'm really happy with how I keep myself upright and send Molly to the weaves...not so happy with my slow pacing, but I was babying keeping her off of the wrong course tunnel.   #sorrynotsorry

All good for Perri, a little sass play bow.   Some nice potential to the weaves but I crouched too much for her entry and then got too pushy and frenzied.  It was good to see this video.   I'm trying to find my energy balance.

Colors was last and Molly qualified and earned her Colors Champion.   So, except for Standard, it is all Level C for quite some time for Miss Molly!

Perri's Colors:

Fullhouse was last with both girls qualifying.   I prefer Fullhouse to be the first class of the day, but honestly...as the last class of the day is is very refreshing.   After a day of handling and numbered courses, and weave poles, we got to just run and do our favorite obstacles.  Can't go wrong with that!

And our favorite photographer got this most excellent shot of Molly!  See ya later, summer trials - we are ready for cooler weather for September!

Rich Knecht Photography