Northern Festival of Agility: Part One
Most perfect agility holiday ever. Redcar is a fantastic venue; I’ve raved about it before, but it’s a huge rugby club/football club training ground, so perfectly flat mowed lawns, nice big exercise areas, and 400m away is the Stray, a beautiful and huge dog friendly beach. What could possibly be better?!
Hare’n’Hounds ran the first half of the week, Saturday to Tuesday. Due to some flyballing issues, I didn’t enter Saturday so we travelled up on Sunday morning with Dylan.
We had a so-so run in the first Grade 3 Agility, it wasn’t a very hard course but I held his Aframe contact and we were very wide and messy around the turns. And the dogwalk was slooooooow! Came a surprising 5th, and Julie’s Winnie won it.
I can’t even remember what happened in the two Grade 3 Jumping runs, so it can’t have been particularly good or bad. I have a vague recollection of one being fiendishly difficult, can’t remember where we went wrong but I know we did!
The other Grade 3 Agility was a nice smooth course, nothing really difficult about it and all I wanted from Dylan was a fast dogwalk. It was reasonably quick, but not quite what I wanted, but he flew around the rest and did a beautiful seesaw for me. I messed up at the end because I ran ahead of Dyl and then heard him crack a pole, but I wasn’t sure if it had fallen or not. I was so busy thinking about that I forgot about the pull to the last jump, and poor Dylan went very wide and then kind of scrambled over it. Eek, bad handler! We got another 5th anyway, good start!
Monday; Grade 3 Jumping was a smooth course, ideally needed a wait start which I don’t have anymore. Made completely the wrong handling choice for the start as a result, we were very messy around the first turn, but still finished 4th. Very pleasantly surprised by that one, I didn’t think we had much chance as it was a nice fast course.
Lovely Grade 3 Agility course, again needed a wait start to get the fast dogwalk from Dylan, and so again he was a little slow to start. A little wide to the weaves as well, but apart from that it was a really nice run, fast and smooth and we came 2nd, behind a cracking little Pointer. We’re getting closer though, so near to that 1st now!
Combined 3-4 Agility … I think we’ll pretend this didn’t happen. I missed the course walking and then tried to run it anyway, and just made a complete hash of it. Trained Dylan’s contacts and bless him, he tried really hard anyway!
The Combined 3-4 Jumping was another superfast course, there were loads of clears so I decided to gamble a bit and leave Dylan in the weaves. I do this at training all the time, but I’ve never dared just run off and leave him in competition. It paid off anyway, he stuck in them and I could get the front cross in and keep him tight to the finish. We finished 12th, not a bad result for my slow Grade 3 dog!
Tuesday … smallest classes of the week and I so wanted the win, I thought we could do it! Had a blitzing run in the Graded 1-4 Jumping, although I called it perfect on twitter and it wasn’t (we were really wide to the second tunnel, I didn’t give Dylan enough information and he wasn’t sure if he should be going on or not). We came 2nd, best ever placing in Jumping. Not really disappointed, Dylan ran like a true pro and was fast, sharp and extended in his jumping. Couldn’t have asked for better from him. (Fab course from Nigel Staines too, loved it!)
The Combined 1-3 Jumping was a basic box type course, all a little tight without much room to stretch. We ran a clear that bagged a 7th but Dylan never really had room to speed up and I didn’t find it all that inspiring. Can’t remember the Graded 1-4 Agility at all, apart from that it was quite hard and I sent Dylan the wrong way (nice contacts though!)
Bit of judge switching went on the afternoon, for various reasons, and so Dylan’s Combined 1-3 Agility was judged by Nigel Staines. He set a fab course with a really tricky pull-thru at the end; Dylan smoked the course, fast contacts and beautiful turns, and then we got scuppered on the pull. Arg! Heard everyone sigh in sympathy, so know the run was as good as I thought it was, and we finished up with a smile.