NADAC/ASCA

It was time for another run at an agility competition, one year after our last one.

We got up bright and early (5:30am), after hitting the snooze bar a couple of times, and packed the last few items after breakfast. It was a chilly morning, so we packed extra towels, jackets for the dogs and jackets for the humans. We left the orbit of the house around 6:40 and got to the agility field right at 7am. Unfortunately, I'd not checked the information thoroughly enough and we were 30 minutes early. the judges wouldn't be sizing the dogs until 7:30.

The dogs needed some familiarity with the grounds, so we gave them a limited morning walk with a chance to do their business.

We brought the dogs to the stacking table and got them measured. They both were way under the height limit for the 16" class, so the judge is mailing in their height cards and they won't need to get measured at future events. We attempted to see if Tank was short enough for the 12" class, but he wasn't. He wouldn't stack well, he likes to sit instead :).

We put the boys back in their kennels to stay warm while we checked out the schedule. Jack: Novice 1 Regular, Novice 2 Regular and then Jumpers. Tank: Nothing, Nothing, Jumpers.

Kim and I helped out setting poles on the courses while waiting for our turn to run.

I brought along a video camera to record the runs. I only managed Jack's first two runs because I had to help handle the dog that wasn't running during the Jumpers.

Jack's first run: very, very rough scorewise. I just looked at the video again and it didn't look that bad. Jack had some problems with popping out of the weaves, he went to a jump instead of the tunnel and he might have gotten points off for a contact failure on the dog walk. According to the scoring sheet, he had 60 points of faults. As the only dog running in Novice A 16", he got first place.

Jack's second run: 10 points in faults, scorewise. I think it may have been a refusal. I didn't move the camera enough to catch it. Jack got the weaves on his third try. Other than that, a nice run. As the only dog running in Novice A 16", he got first place.

Tank's Jumpers: About what we expected for his first competition. He jumped the first two jumps and then checked out the judge, the horses, the cattle and the rest of the ring. Then he came back to Kim. An elimination for Tank.

Jack's Jumpers: A clean run but for the fact he went into the tunnel in the wrong end. We think Kim may have turned right for the next obstacle a little early.

Apparently, there is no differentiation in Novice A or B for Jumpers, so we didn't even place as high as 4th place in Jumpers.

Some interesting developments with regard to future events came out of this one. The place where we train for agility (Pawsitive Impact), has decided not to run any NADAC trials in the future. They change their rules too often. Pawsitive is looking into running some trials that allow All-Americans like Jack and Tank to run, but they haven't made any decisions yet. Also, the place where we hold most of our trials (Arena without Walls) has decided that dog trials are too much trouble and will not be hosting any after September.

So, in summary, we had a good trial. We met expectations and Jack came home with two new squeaky toys and two first place ribbons will be in the mail to us shortly (they ran out at the trial).

Next up: USDAA in January, I hope.