Trial Time!

Gidget and I were in a trial this past Sat.  It was a big deal because we had the potential of getting both our Open titles!  Sadly the trial wasn't very well organized.  Seems they were lacking a lot of the help they needed.  They started late and went much later than it should have (we were done at the same time as we had been for a trial 3 times the size!).  Those that were working were super nice and you could tell they were working hard!  My mom and I ended up helping out too.

STD was up first.  There were only 5 dogs in Open and 3 of them were 16 inchers.  The course had some good challenges, including tunnel/contact discriminations, but I was pretty confident Gidget could pass them all.  So when I was done walking the course I went and got Gidget out thinking they'd start running pretty quickly.  It ended up being a much longer wait than I expected, 10 min. maybe.  Anyways, it was enough for Gidget to lose some enthusiasm and she started out her run pretty slow.  Thankfully she picked up some speed coming out of the tunnel and looked pretty good (even did the chute just fine!) until the dog walk which was apparently scarier than normal dog walks.  She didn't jump that contact, but she did jump the A-frame contact.  The judge didn't see that big error and we qualified.  She was the only Open dog to qualify.  I'm not sure how I feel about that stolen Q.  Others told me that it wasn't a big deal because sometimes judges miss a mistake, and sometimes they'll give you a NQ when you thought it should have been a Q.  I told myself, that the jumpers course would determine if I kept her in Open for both, or moved her up to Excellent for both at our next trial.  Here's the video:

Between runs Gidget got a good nap on my lap (I don't think she naps in her kennel at trials).  I got a good lunch and got to see some good excellent runs while being a leash runner/bar setter.  For the JWW run, I made sure to not get Gidget out of her kennel until the judge was back in the ring.  This seemed to help, she seemed a little quicker to me, though far from her fastest.  All was good til we got to a 180 and I started moving to set up for a front cross after the next jump before Gidget was fully committed.  So I pulled her off the jump and then she got distracted by the leash runner so it took a second to get her moving again.  That second put us just over standard course time, but we still qualified with a 93 (again the only Open dog to qualify).  Here's the JWW video:



So overall it was a successful trial day.  I still need to work on getting Gidget's energy up at trials, especially when traveling.  I think our instructor is right that she's tired from staying at my parents' house.  So next time we do a trial there, we'll get there later, no walks with the other dogs and make sure we get to bed nice and early.  Hopefully that will help.  Happy agility!