Still Grade 2 … EMDAC May and Waldridge Fell

EMDAC

Kim and Dylan at EMDAC this time, but just for one day. Both were entered for 4 runs each but I ended up pulling Dylan from both his agility classes, he’s still not confident on the seesaw. He made up for it by having a decent run in the Helter Skelter (got E’d!) and an absolutely cracking run in the Jumping, got E’d again but I was so pleased with him, he really attacked the course, got his weaves perfectly and really focussed on what he was doing. Progress has been made!

Kim appears to have found at least part of her crazy again, as she was enthused all weekends about her runs and even if she wasn’t running up in 4th or 5th, we had some good moments. Primary Jumping was a simple course with 12 weaves, and her weaves are too slow at the moment to get us any really high placings on a course like that. It was nice to run though, and we did go clear and placed 16th, top Medium dog so not too fussed! Helter Skelter was her best run of the weekend, we came a very surprising 5th out of 90+ dogs! Our agility runs … well, the less said the better I think!

Waldridge Fell

Just Kim at Waldridge, lovely showground and a lovely show! Just a shame about the scheduling, it was too much all at once for both Kim and I to keep our cool.

We started off with a clear on the Graded 1-2 Agility (bit rough but we got round and Kim was working her contacts nicely), and thought, oh-so-briefly, that we had it in the bag … and then Bailey stepped on course and put in one of the best runs I’ve ever seen her do, it was absolutely paw-perfect and she nailed everything. Emma and Bails won the class by just over 2 seconds, and into Grade 3! I’m so pleased for both of them, Bailey can be a little terror when she wants and Emma has had to work so hard with her! Kim came 2nd but as the class only placed to 1st she doesn’t get any agility warrant points for it.

Things went downhill from there … Waldridge Fell had changed the ring plans on the morning which meant the classes were not in the order we were expecting. Because the class entries were so small in the Medium classes, we were walking the courses and then running immediately — no time to watch anybody run or walk back to the car to collect dogs! That meant I had to have Kim out and ready whilst I walked the course, which doesn’t work for her as she gets bored and tired. Immediately after we ran the Graded 1-2 Agility, we had the Graded 1-2 Jumping, although Emma and I didn’t realise that! We missed the course walking and so I had to run it blind, having watched 2 dogs run before me! Kim hit her weave entry and then paused to sniff something and missed the next pole. She was working and focussed so it wasn’t stress-sniffing, so I’m not sure what caught her attention and I wouldn’t want to speculate! We finished up with 5 faults but won the class anyway by 14 seconds.

Immediately after that we had to walk the Combined 1-2 Agility class. The results from the first class still weren’t out so we didn’t know if Kim or Bailey had won it, and I couldn’t decide whether to push Kim for speed or be careful to get her contacts on the course. I wasn’t that keen on the course in the second class anyway — it was the same judge and the equipment stayed in the same place, only the numbers changed. Kim doesn’t like repetition but she actually ran it quite well, just a shame about the handler! I should have layered a jump in but I tried to go around it, and ended up pushing her past the jump she should have done. Refusal … and now we’re stuck in Grade 2 still!

Immediately after that (and I do mean immediately!) the Open Pairs class was calling for Mediums, so Emma and I walked that and then queued with Kim and Bailey whilst the judge took a quick coffee break. Whilst we were in the queue for Pairs, we suddenly realised the ring next to us was running the Combined 1-2 Medium Jumping, so we had to desert the Pairs queue and go and run that, despite not having walked that one either! Kim threw in a nice clear and came 1st again, by just over 3 seconds.

We then ran Pairs and Kim and Bailey both went clear in a decent time, but we had some seriously tired dogs on our hands. I think they finished 4th out of the Medium pairs. I’ve never asked Kim to run 5 full courses back to back in training, let alone competition, and she was exhausted. I’m so proud of her though, she gave me everything she had to compete under circumstances I know that she doesn’t like, and I let her down on the 2nd agility course.

I have to admit I’m really disappointed that we’re still Grade 2. I came home so pleased with Kim at EMDAC and so downhearted from Waldridge Fell. It reinforced all my reasons for not doing Kennel Club shows — Kim won 2 classes this weekend, but they weren’t difficult wins and there was no achievement for us. We may be 1 Jumping win closer to Grade 3 but it feels frustrating slow — Kim has already won 3 Jumping classes, beating dogs from higher grades to do it, but we won them as Grade 1’s so they don’t count. She came home from EMDAC with lower placings but I felt like we’d achieved something, we beat a lot of good dogs, have some more points towards the League Tables and the Dog of the Year awards, and hopefully are on our way to qualifying for the Finals in August.

Enough about that, I make enough arguments for BAA shows as it is! Kim was much better this weekend in herself, she was bouncy and tugging in the queue and running smoother on course. She got a handful of AW points too so we’re an inch closer to the 200 points. We aren’t competing again in agility for 6 weeks/2 months, so we can get some proper training done and come back refreshed for the middle of the summer season.