Wenatchee Kennel Club Trial
October 9, 10, 2004
Wenatchee, Wa.
Judge: Denise Thomas
300 runs per day. Outdoors on grass. Held at Confluence State Park beside the mighty Columbia River.
This is my second time at this trial and although it was smaller this year than last year, it was still a well run trial in a very nice location. The club even arranged with the State Park to have a designated off leash area for the dogs for the weekend. The location is beautiful. It is always sunny and warm in Wenatchee when it is cold and rainy in Seattle. I had been in Canada all week, and came home to find Al and Grace who had stayed with Heather, to be about 1/2 pound heavier that I had left them. Heather had compensated for my absence by giving them a lot of food. I didn't care that Al looked like a wiener dog, and he was so excited to see me at the airport that he almost jumped out of the car. Al had a tough week, taking out his anxiety about me being gone forever, by a couple of "accidents" on the floor rug in the bedroom. Once I got home I got us ready to drive 3 hrs to the agility trial, had a few hours sleep, and then got up at 3:45AM to start the drive to the agility trial. Al didn't care. We drove through rain most of the way there. Al was excited to be with me and slept most of the way. We arrived at 7:30, found a place for a quick breakfast, and then arrived at the Trial just as they opened the course for walk throughs at 8AM. It had rained in the night and when we arrived, the rain had recently stopped, and we were going to have a dry weekend.
Al was really raring to run when we went to the start line. It was 8:10 AM. The ground was wet from the nights rain, and it was cold. Al didn't want to sit at the start, but he tried and did for a short time. He wanted to run. The course was two jumps then a turn. We got the two jumps but Al decided to forget the turn and headed straight into the tunnel that lay before him like a Christmas Gift. He flew into the tunnel, and then came out the other end looking for me "like where have you been?" Then it was over a jump and into the weave poles, where we blew the entry. This wasn't going to be our best run, but Al was having a blast. Al did great from this point on. He almost missed the contact on the down side of the A Frame, but he got it and the judge saw. Then it was a chute and a hard 180 degree turn to a jump, and then a continuation of the turn to the table.
The turn was really hard and short, and Al cut it as close as he could because he wanted to run fast. When starting his jump, he clipped the cup on the inside post of the jump (the metal cup that holds up the bar), and really banged his right front leg. I didn't see it but I heard it. It was a loud clang. When I looked back, Al was limping and hobbling towards the table in obvious pain. The crowd started yelling "hurt dog", Al tried to hop up on the table, but I caught him and picked him up. The poor little guy really had hurt his shin. Everybody was worried including me, but he walked it off and I rubbed him for a long time to get some blood moving into the area. In a minute, he was ready to play, and we went for a long walk, run, play down by the river, and probably walked 2 miles. Al loved it. Birds to chase, worms to roll in, a dead fish that he thankfully resisted when I called him off it. Al was alright, and that was all that was important right then. I was told to watch him for any sign of stiffness, but he seemed fine and didn't favor his injured leg at all.
I didn't want to show him hurting himself so the video stops right before it happened.
This was a fun run for Al. Except for the 2nd obstacle, a tunnel, which had the easiest tunnel entry Al has seen for a long time??!! I set Al up for the start line so that he was looking almost into the correct tunnel entry, and it was a straight run into it. He was looking right into it. We were off, through the tire at the start line, and I said "tunnel" and ran towards the correct entry. Al came almost to the correct entry, and then ran the whole length of the tunnel to the opposite end of it and entered the tunnel from the wrong direction. I decided that Al has seen so many hard entries to the tunnel that he decided that this was way to easy and I must have meant the other end.
Al happily ran through the tunnel, and came out to meet and greet me, and then I sent him into the correct end of the tunnel, and we were off and running. Al ran hard. We had a fast clean run from that point on and it was really good run; except for the start. Actually, it was a really great run. Al flew.
Al's time was 36.86 seconds. The Standard Course Time (SCT) was 49 seconds (158 yards). The wrong course in the tunnel cost us just over 5 seconds. Had we run clean, we would have run at 5 yards per second, which is incredible.
This was a funny run. It had a very hard tunnel/A Frame differentiation task for the dogs right after the start line. It was over the start line jump and then a straight line to a tunnel entry and an A frame, with the tunnel entry past the start of the A Frame ramp. I had it all figured out how we would do it, went to the start line and waited for the timer to yell out "ready!" I waited, and waited some more, Al was sitting waiting for me and was getting impatient. I finally looked up and yelled " do I have a Go??!!" and someone at the timers table who has shit for brains yelled back, "you still have your leash on". I almost blew a gasket!! Ric Travis who was also at the scoring table saved me the trouble. (Ric supplies all the equipment and timers for all the trials around here) He yelled at the person next to him, "HE DOESN'T HAVE TO TAKE OFF THE LEASH!!" I'm surprised that he didn't hit them on the back of their head when he said this because he was really angry about it. Anyway, I was busy, and decided that rather than going through the start line routine again, that Al and I would just try and run as if nothing had happened.
It worked out. Al gave me the other side of the start jump and then was off and I got him into the tunnel, YaHOO!! Then we did the A Frame, with a SSSLLOOOOOOOOWWWW descent!. Al kept checking in with me after getting to the top, to see if this was what I wanted. Finally, he hit the contact, and we were off. A jump and then the Collapsed Chute, which Al stopped in and I was terribly afraid that he was going to pop out, but managed to coax him out the right end. ( Apparently, other dogs stopped in the chute to sniff too, so there had to be a scent of "something" in there. One dog was in there at least 30 seconds??) Al did great from here on , except for another unintended blind cross out of the weave poles and onto the table. A good obedient sit, and off to the rest of the coarse. A fast dog walk with a pretty good contact, then a sprint to the finish with a couple of odd angles that required me to run as fast as I could to stay ahead of Al so that we didn't collide.
We had finished the run clean, but it wasn't pretty.
Al Qualified placing Third. Al's time was 60.73 seconds. The Standard Course Time (SCT) was 74 seconds (158 yards)
The video starts at the tunnel which was the third obstacle after the start line. This was a long tunnel, and I had to wait for Al to come out, so that I could pull him over the yellow jump, which a lot of dogs were missing, if their handler got too far ahead. So I waited a bit, and was able to get in a Front cross a couple of jumps later, although I was a little late with it and Al had to slow up a bit.
Then it was over a jump and past one end of a tunnel and into the far end of it, which Al did perfectly. Al came out of the tunnel, and over a jump and did nice weave poles, after which I did a front cross. Then a series of 6 jumps. This is where I ran the course differently, than I walked it. I had planned to do a front cross between the 3rd and 4th jumps in this sequence, but I watched people run the course, and nobody could get there in time to do one. Barb Davis of the World Team was able to but even she struggled, and she had a good out with her dog so she had a head start. I had to do a rear cross after the 4th jump, then push Al over a jump into a 270 degree turn, and then pick him up after that jump and head for the finish line sequence. This was something that I had never done with Al before, never practiced, and had actually never seen anyone do in competition. But we had to do it, and I watched a few people who got through the course successfully, do it, so I decided to try it.
It worked, and we went on to the finish line sequence, and Al had run clean!!
I am so amazed that Al was able to do this sequence with me. He is such a good dog!!
Al Qualified placing Second, and also earned a Double Q!! Al's time was 35.99 seconds. The Standard Course Time (SCT) was 46 seconds (150 yards).
