Tailwaggers March 2012

I only entered Dylan at this show, and I only entered it as a whole bunch of people said they were going and then they didn’t. I’m not bitter.

It was a good chance to see if Dylan really was ok though, since Novice+ courses tend to have a few more straight lines of obstacles and generally are faster courses. It’s usually filled with really good G6/7 dogs training but there were quite a few of the usual dogs missing, mainly because they’d all been at Ribble.

We got some lovely courses all day; the jumping classes were generally challenging but fair, and the Agility classes were big open easy runs. Dylan’s first class was Novice+ Up and Under, and my handling was appalling but he ran it so well, easy clean jumping and he was happy. We finished 2nd, first placing for months!

N+ Agility was a really really easy course, just one pull-through and the rest was up and down lines. I held all his contacts and we finished way down the line, but his jumping was so clean and he was driving through all the lines, I was thrilled to bits. I can’t believe what a difference his adjustment has made; compare the video below to the video from the beginning of February.

N+ Jumping was a tricky course but fun to run, Dylan backjumped as I wasn’t clear enough about where we were going. Oops. Need to set that particular sequence up in training I think as it is a weak point!

My video camera died otherwise I would be showing the video from N+ TFO Agility rather than the Agility classes as it was our best run for a year. I nearly cried when we were done, partly because I was dying of exhaustion but mainly because Dylan was amazing, drivey and fast and beautiful jumping the whole way around. TFO has never been our game, but this course was in a huge ring, really spread out and with big open spaces between the jumps, and a double Aframe as part of the course. Just Dyl’s kind of course! We set off so well and reached the dogwalk before we got called up as the timer hadn’t started. I figured we’d just start again straight away, so we went back to the start and set up again. I pushed his first two contacts a bit more the second time, since we’d already done them! He was absolutely flying and we got a course and a half done before we got whistled for time (on jump 5), and then we ended up taking the dogwalk and jump 7 to get to the end which was the long way around.

I watched the rest of the class done and saw three dogs hit the Aframe and then make their way to the end over the flat, so I wasn’t sure how we’d done as I thought we’d been whistled on the Aframe too. As it turned out we came 1st and our time was faster than almost all the other dogs who were whistled for time despite taking the long route. I am so pleased! It might have been just a little unaffiliated show but Dylan was so happy and so fast and confident, it was a better run than when he won out of Grade 5 and I’m so proud of him.

He got more and more comfortable and confident as the weekend went on, it was clear he was finding his feet again. We aren’t competing again until Easter but we do have Drax flyball in three weeks, so we’ll see how he gets on there. I hope I can keep him at this level of fitness and confidence, and with a little more work to brush up on his contacts and my handling, maybe we can get some G6 placings over the summer.

I am so unfit though, I am never going to make it around the 1-3 courses again with Rio.