Boston Terrier Club of Western Washington (BTCWW)
Agility Trial - April 17th & 18th, 2004
Al’s Runs
This was an indoor trial at Auburn Washington on dirt. Al and Grace were entered in both the Std. and JWW events on both days. Al couldn’t have done better with 2 First Placements. He earned the final leg of his Open Standard title, and the First leg of his Excellent A JWW title, and because of some bad luck, a fast clean run in Excellent A Std didn’t get him a Q!! He was 2 for 4, but easily could have been 3 for 4!!
Way to go Al. Thanks for the great weekend!!
600 runs per day, 2 rings.
I was hoping that this would be Al’s last time to run an Open Std. course as a Q would give him his Open Title. The little man delivered, doing a down on a damp table, and having a clean run! The only 12” dog to run clean!! There were 59 Open dogs. Al placed first in 12” dogs, with a clean run and a time 13 seconds under course time. (2.75 yds/sec). This was a very nice run for Al. Although we spent a lot of time at the table he still had a respectable time!! He was as happy as me at the finish line!! Now Al is Willowmere’s Jazzman D’laviere OA, OAJ!!
This was going to be Al’s last Open JWW course as he already had 6 Qs and had been running so well that it seemed best to move him into Excellent A. The objective of this run was to get him to really go fast, experiment a little, and to try and have a clean run. I chose to see how it would work if we did some rear crosses in competition and although they worked fine, he would have been faster if I had done front crosses. The first rear cross allowed Al to explore a sunspot on the floor. A lot of dogs did the same. I also blew it at the tunnel entrance and gave him all the signals to go in the wrong end of the tunnel, which cost us a Q, but I learned a lesson, along with 3/4 of the rest of the class, who also had the same result. Had I redone the weave poles Al would have Qualified with a score of 90. I chose to run it as if he were in the Excellent class.
This was Al’s first run in Excellent A. It was pretty intimidating as it is a whole different level of competition.
Al ran fabulously!! I was able to do a front cross in front of the first tunnel that I didn’t think that I would be able to do, and Al got faster and more focused as we ran. It felt great!! Smooth. We had a fast time with a clean run, and a first place qualifying score!!
There were 38 Excellent A dogs entered. Al was 12 seconds below course time and ran at 4.35 yards/sec. I am going to check and see, but Al was definitely the only dog to Q under 20” and I am not sure if there were any faster runs or Qs in the 20” or 24” dogs!! No wonder everyone was coming up and telling us how great he did!! They really appreciated what a nice run he had!!
Who would have ever thought that Al and I would make it into Excellent A Std class given the “table problems” that he and I suffered last year!! Not only that, we had a good shot at a Double Q, in our first day of Excellent competition!! I am so proud of Al finally coming around, and accepting the table as part of the Std. course. He had to be very brave and did so much hard work to get both a sit and more importantly a down on the table.
On his first Excellent A Std. course everything went fine until we hit the start line! Al wouldn’t settle, and do a sit for me (although he was great outside the ring and as we walked into the ring), and after two requests from the judge to “Please Start”, I decided to give up on the start line sit, and Al jumped through the tire with me in chase slightly behind him!! We were headed for the second jump and Al was now beside me, and we were both headed straight for the dog walk, when Al spotted the trap jump on the other side of me, and turned into me!! Yikes!! Al, I don't want to step on you!! I jumped up and forward to avoid the collision, and landed ahead of him, and then Al collided with the back of the leg that I had just landed on, and then he tumbled!! Thank God I didn’t step on him!! I looked down at him as he got up. He had big eyes but their was no crying, and he gave a little tail wag so I decided to go on and do the Dog Walk. The whole crowd gasped when this happened. Thank God I didn’t step on him or worse, snap his leg!! The Judge raised her arms!! We went on to the rest of the course, and Al had his composure back by the end of the Dog Walk. We had an awesome run!! We ran clean and fast. I got in a front cross that I didn’t think would be possible, and best of all, Al didn’t get hurt and was enthusiastic about running. He was a little jumpy about getting too close to my feet, which is very understandable.
Had we not been disqualified, Al’s time would have placed him 3rd in his class behind two Shelties. He was 10 seconds under course time and ran 3 yds/sec.
I'm just thankful that I didn't injure him!!
I also learned that no matter what the Judge says; I am going to run Al when I am ready!! If I we are not ready, and Al jumps the start, then we are headed for disaster!! Al is fast enough, that he will have no problem making course time, so the Judge can wait, or if the Judge wants to, they can start the clock, but I am not leaving the start line until I am ready! I don't care if there is 30 seconds on the clock when we cross the start line!! It's just too dangerous.
