Al Earns His Agility Excellent Title (AX)

This is page is set up so that people without fast internet connections can see what it is like to do Agility with my IG Al.  Following is a description of the run in which Al earned the final qualifying score required for the AX title from the AKC. 

When you come to a word that is of a different color and is underlined you can click on the word and a picture will download, which shows what was happening at that point of our run.  I hope you enjoy watching Al succeed on a course that was extremely difficult, and designed to make dogs eliminate themselves by either missing jumps or going over jumps that weren't part of the course sequence.

 Washington State Obedience Training Club Trial, Standard Course 2 Excellent A.

After the Mental Lapse on the JWW course I wanted to have a better day.  It had rained hard overnight, and the table was wet, and it was 8:00 AM and Al was dog #20 to run.  It was a tricky course and had a hard weave pole entry right after the A Frame.  I decided the only way to get the weave poles was to get Al in line with them after the contact and then do a front cross and let him do his job. 

Al sat at the start line, and I actually got about 3 - 4 feet as a lead out.  YaHoo!!  Al ran hard off the start and after jump 2 he was looking at the first trap which was an off course jump, but he went in the tunnel, and then we were off.  He was pretty enthusiastic and happy.  He got his contact on the A Frame and then the Front Cross before the poles worked really well and he did pretty fast  Weave Poles for us.  Then it was off to the part that I thought would get us.  180 degrees to Two jumps, a hard left turn that forced the handler to avoid running through the weave poles because it was right in a straight line between the two jumps that were in the sequence.  Just to make it almost impossible the Judge added an off course A frame right as the dogs made the turn to the jump on the other side of the poles.  Everybody thought it was pretty dirty.  Anyway, I called Al's name and he paid attention and avoided the A Frame Trap and did the Jump!!  Yahoo!!  I love you Al!! 

On to the next jump, and then a hard left again with an off course jump just to make sure that you don't run clean.  Al paid attention again and turned really hard to get to the Dog Walk.  He got his contact, and then it was on to the wet cold table.  He got down, but it wasn't perfect, and the Judge counted when she thought he was as low as he could be expected to go on a cold wet table.  On to the Teeter, another jump, and another one that I didn't work hard enough, so Al almost cut it short, but he responded, and then it was a hard turn and two more jumps to the finish line.

Al Did it!!!  We had a clean run!!  He was so excited!!  Al after a lot of good runs, finally got his AX (Agility Excellent) Title.  He was very proud of himself and knew from the instant that the run was over that he had done something really good.  I was afraid the judge was going to fault us for not having the dog under control when you left the ring because she had done it to my instructors husband the day before.  That was a tough course and Al mastered it. 

The SCT (standard course time) was 75 seconds (175 yds.).  Al's time was 56.93 seconds, giving him a First place finish.  Of all the Excellent A dogs of all heights only Al and an 8" dog had Qualifying scores.  Al's time was 11 seconds faster than the other dog and was 18 seconds below course time. 

Maybe I should give Al the nickname "First or Last" because he finished first in all of his qualifying runs for both his AX and AXJ titles.