Agility,  Dylan

Empingham 2013

Running OrdersRio is getting her own post about this show later!

Dylan’s chiro treatment last week seems to have worked, because he was back to ‘normal’ this time! We weren’t particularly successful in terms of results, but he was working much much better and his times were good. Even better, his contacts were fantastic, super confident dogwalks with no hesitations.

First run was the C4-7 Jumping, just my cup of tea in terms of course design! No boring grids, very smooth and flowing kind of course but with plenty of challenges. We had really great clear up until the end, when I stupidly decided to play it safe and so lost loads of time on the final turn. I should have risked it! Dylan was about 5s off the winner, which was pleasing (I don’t usually sat that, but 2 weeks ago, he’d have been 20s off!).

G6-7 Jumping was an equally nice course, same as the above with a few number adjustments. I elected to take the long route off the second set of weaves as I thought it made for a smoother line. Dylan was feeling extremely happy and did the kind of run where he just pings off and takes whatever he fancies, so we got E’d. I never begrudge him his pingy-moments, he has them so rarely.

Large G6-7 Agility Course PlanWe had a long wait until the agility, and the G6-7 Agility was a really odd course. Lots of challenges, all awkward spacings and angles which don’t really come across on my shabby from-memory course plan. And the trendy tunnel-under-contacts thing was out in force, as it was all weekend! It was fun to run. I pushed Dyl out over the top side of 12 and then didn’t leave him enough room to jump, so he ended up circling round. We got 5R and then a few time faults as a result; the course time was 45s and only 5 of the clear G6 dogs got under time. Very confident dogwalk and great weaves from Dylbert though!

C5-7 Agility was exactly the opposite, a really straightforward course which one trap only. Dylan picked up 5f for a missed aframe contact, oops, but he ran the course really nicely and he avoided the dogwalk trap beautifully. Turns out training does pay off!

Sunday was a similar kind of day!

Large G6-7 Agility Course PlanG6-7 Agility was a super course first thing, really open spaced and just what I love to run with Dylan. His dogwalk was super and I was really happy with how he worked, but we ran very early in the day and it was damp. Dylan slipped on the turn off 4 and then was too cautious coming round on 11, and went too wide to pick up the Aframe. So it goes! The only thing I found disconcerting with this course was that the judge kept nearly getting in the way, she was stood very close to 2 and then she ran to view the dogwalk contact and backed between 7-8 to move away. If you quick released your dog, as I did, the dogs came off 7 and she was still moving across their paths. Normally I’m never aware of the judge when running.

G6-7 Jumping was another really interesting course, but I made a silly handling error and pushed Dylan out around 14, so we got 5R. My pull to the tunnel was messy too, lost a lot of speed on that. Dyl would have actually been in the placings if we hadn’t picked up faults, so that was positive!

Our only clear was in the C4-7 Jumping, and although it was a good run, it wasn’t perfect and I elected to take the long route so I knew it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Large C6-7 Agility Course PlanC6-7 Agility last of all and another very open course. Unfortunately it was a spread jump start, so I was really restricted. Dylan has a history of crashing spreads unless I’m supporting and moving with him laterally with him, and I didn’t want to risk even a clip which might damage his confidence, let alone a crash which might damage his body! So we got E’d at the 3rd obstacle, oops. Shame as it was a very interesting course to run, not many clears as the final section offered a lot of options but not much success!

It was quite sweet to see so many dogs and handlers that I used to see when we did BAA (before it descended into dictatorial madness) at this show, and it was really nice to see the super chocolate Flat Coat win the ABC Olympia Qualifier. Have long admired that dog and she was on fantastic form this weekend!