Outdoor Trial!

Gidget and I were in a trial on Sat.  The weather people had been predicting rain off and on all week, so I headed out expecting to be comfortably cool and possibly wet, sunscreen was the last thing on my mind.  It turned out to be a beautiful day!  It was warm and windy and my skin was nice and red by the end of the day, but I couldn't complain too much.  I volunteered for the trial and had to be there bright and early even though Gidget didn't run til after noon.  I was worried about how she'd handle being in her kennel for so long before running, but she did quite well.  I put her thundershirt on before we left in the morning and kept it on most of the time she wasn't running or getting ready to run.  I left her in the car for my first bit of volunteering then moved her to her kennel and covered it.  We were set up in the sun, but her kennel stayed surprisingly comfortable and I made sure to send her to her water dish frequently.  Before runs we took a short walk in the big open field away from the rings.  I'm not sure which part of all this helped Gidget the most, but the slow poky Gidget I've been seeing recently at trials only made an appearance briefly in her last run.  She was still far from her fastest, but I was pretty happy with her!

It was our first trial in Excellent A and Std was up first.  My concerns were mainly the dog walk and A-frame contacts and the chute, I told her it'd be nice if she got the correct tunnel entrance at a tricky spot too.  She did everything I asked her to!  Her contacts were near perfect, she took the chute but did get a refusal at it first, and she read my front cross perfectly and took the correct tunnel entrance!  Unfortunately we had some unexpected issues with the weaves (I thought I had a good set up but wasn't completely surprised that she missed the entrance since every other dog had missed it too), and a fly off the teeter which was a total surprise because Gidget's never ever done that!  We finished the run with a nice long curve of jumps, which is definitely one of Gidget's favorite things to do!  Here's a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znz0AMa8Llw

Next was Exc JWW.  It was a fun course with some front cross spots and another long curve of jumps at the end.  I remembered to use my landmarks so two of my three front crosses look nice and smooth.  The third one may not have been necessary, but it worked out just fine.  The only issue on this course was the weaves, otherwise it was beautiful!  Here's the video:

Lastly we tried out the new class Time 2 Beat.  With no refusals counted, and no table, chute or dog walk, how could we resist this fun looking class?  I realized during the walk through that both of our other courses had the weaves on my left and this course was set up the same way.  I figured changing it up could be a good thing and an easy front cross put the weaves on my right.  Well that worked!  Gidget finally weaved just fine, not fast, but that's OK.  I was a little worried about how she'd take the teeter after flying off it earlier, but she did just fine.  She got her A-frame contact too, twice!  This was our only Q run for the day and earned a whole 1 point!  The fastest 16" dog was really fast and we were a little on the slow side (she took forever to come out of the first tunnel!).  Here's the video:

Overall I could not have been happier with the day!  Our successes definitely out weigh our mess-ups.  I think we'll be doing this trial again next year!  Happy agility!