Wilmslow 2014
I am so glad I entered this show. Dylan had a great time; he was so excited and enthusiastic to be running, I can’t imagine a better retirement show for him.
G6-7 Agility first thing was a nice course, nothing horribly challenging but some interesting handling options. I tried to flick Dylan away from me at the bottom of the Aframe, and Dylan interpreted this as … go take a jump 20ft away. Oh well! We had fun finishing up. His contacts were great, nice and confident. The difference between his performance on aluminium vs. plastic/wood is really amazingly different.
C6-7 Agility was ok. Not really my kind of course, although apparently lots of people loved it. We got E’d early on when Dylan bounded off to add in the jump after the weaves (he was all about offering jumps this weekend). I also didn’t like the tunnel-under-dogwalk discrimination, mainly because the course didn’t give me room to handle it appropriately. That’s a very specific Dylan problem though, he has a big “bubble” and to pull him off the tunnel I needed to be much further away than the course-design allowed. And the weave entry/weave-tunnel discrimination was something we’ve seen all over the place recently, so we’re getting pretty good at that.
Got both those classes run by 10:30, and then had to wait until 3pm for the Jumping. Which was the most boring course ever (sorry, judge). I’m all for giving the dogs a nice blasty course occasionally, but there was a C1-7 Jumping on as well which I didn’t enter because I wanted something challenging. I did not get challenging with this course. Having said that, we got E’d, so … ! The E was a result of my being lazy however. Let that be a lesson to me, just because I don’t find a course interesting or inspiring, I shouldn’t be lazy about handling it. Dylan actually ran it fantastically, his jumping was smooth and free and he didn’t even stutter going into the double. Hasn’t managed that for years!
We had a good day; Dylan was happy and confident, and we got E’d in every class because he was feeling brave and offering obstacles. His jumping was fluid, his contacts were great, and his weaves were perfect. I can’t ask for more. He is now officially retired from KC competitions. He might do a few UKA shows here and there, depending on whether they’re using aluminium contacts or not.