AKC Agility Trial Manhattan, IL August 18th

August 18th I was up in Chicago for vacation and I thought what better way to start that vacation than with a little day of agility. I took my family out to Manhattan, IL so they could see Baxter run for the first time. We ran four times and it was a blast!

FAST Novice-- We ran our first FAST course ever. I was a little nervous about it as I wasn't sure what the best path would be. We were also walking the Excellent JWW course at the same time and I was a little more concerned about that course (see below). I didn't have a lot of time to pick a path, so I thought I have a fast dog, we'll just wing it. Kinda. Sorta. Well, we did and we got 57 points- 41 points + 20 send bonus - 4 time fault. I think I probably got just about every single point jump you could get and in my haste, I forgot to do the weaves! I was still really happy that we qualified and as a bonus we came in first place. The send was fun and I look forward to trying some more of these types of courses in the future.

Excellent A Jumpers with Weaves-- This was quite possibly the hardest course I've done in competition yet! It was a blast with a huge serpentine line the beginning. Lots of fun. Baxter did awesome on it and took his weaves like a champ. This course was so difficult that 55 dogs NQ'd and only 8 dogs Q'd total. Just very very very fun.

Excellent A Standard-- I was so excited about this standard course. Not anywhere near as difficult as the JWW course, but still a lot of places where your handling could vary. The mistake I made on this course was changing my handling at the last minute to a move that was not as exact as what it would have been. I sent Baxter off course to a tunnel entrance, called him back before he entered and continued the course cleanly. My feet and hands gave him a bad direction and got us a refusal and an NQ. Too bad too, it was a very nice course. Other than that, he was an amazing little guy!

T2B-- Time 2 Beat is probably my favorite thing to run in AKC. It just seems really nice and easy and quick. I can try new handling things in a trial setting. We were rocking the course when Baxter took my front cross too literally and came around a jump. Instead of me just sending him around the missed jump, I (stupidly) send him back over the previous jump again to practice this move. He gets it right and we get NQ'd because you can't repeat any jumps. *sadface* I did not know that. Another lesson learned, it helps to know the rules of the games you are playing! (As we will see in the next trial, I try to take this lesson to heart, but my excitement clouds my memory and I resend him over a jump anyway. ^^')