Well Meeker and I put on our "big boy pants" and tried his first USDAA agility trial this past weekend (only my second USDAA trial). Contact Sports Agility hosted the trial at a nice indoor soccer facility in Crystal Lake, IL. Our judge all weekend was Becky Dean who was very nice, fair, had nice courses and was in surprisingly good spirits throughout the long days.

It was also nice to see so many of the folks we train with at a trial. The Starters group for 22" jump height had over 30 dogs in most classes. It was a very supportive group, there was a lot of cheering going on and everyone helped each other out. A big thanks to Mary, Jeanette, and Whitney for videotaping our runs! I can't recall a more fun group at a trial.

Random thoughts: I built courses all weekend and a lot of folks pitched in to help things move along. This was a big trial, almost 900 runs in two rings on Saturday. There was good catered food for the workers. I finally met Linda Mecklenburg. A couple times nice people stopped me and mentioned they enjoyed my blog, thank you! I met Maven, a sweet BC who might be related to Meeker.

I didn't sleep well Friday night, woke up at 3:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I was concerned about how Meeker would react in a new environment. This was our first trial "away from home" and I wanted him to do well. But I needn't have worried. Meeker was very good, although he was almost out of his mind seeing the other BCs tugging and jumping the warm up jump while we waited to run. We earned 6 Qs out of 7 attempts, two 1st places and a 2nd place.

Here's the video with more description below:

Saturday

The first course was Jumpers. Meeker was amped up as high as I have ever seen him at a trial. I put him in his usual sit at the line. My intent was a three jump lead out to take out a cross and make it clear where he was going right from the start. I had taken one or two steps to the first jump and Meeker had self released and was off down the course. If I had had my wits about me I would have called him to me and left the ring. But I didn't. I chased after him, handling from behind for three obstacles, until I caught up to him in the tunnel. From then on I ran our plan and he Q'd the run. From then on I put him in a down at the start line.

Next was Snooker. I had a plan that would give me the three highest point colors in the opening. We completed the opening with only one bobble. Meeker refused the jump wrap before the weaves when I turned off it too quickly. When we got into the closing sequence we got our first test of Meeker's new running A Frame at USDAA height. He did a good job, not quite as deep in the yellow as I'd like but it was nice. Of course I was so concerned with his getting the contact I didn't pay attention to his taking the off course red jump. But I didn't really care, he got his contact.

Next up was Gamblers, the Dog Walk was the 5 point obstacle, so we took it twice. I'm not that happy with Meeker's skittering down into his contact, we'll have to work on that. The buzzer went off just as he went into the final tunnel. The gamble was a three jump PinWheel which he handled nicely.

Our final run of the day was Standard. It was a nice run. I baby sat all of his contacts so I could give him a nice "Yes!" at each. It was a nice clean run.

With Steeplechase and Grand Prix running in our ring it was a very long day. I think close to 12 hours of actual running. But everyone stayed in good humor and pitched in to keep things going.

Sunday

The day began with Gamblers. This gamble was a little more involved. It was a jump to a tunnel and then two jumps parallel to the gamble line. The teeter was a 7 point obstacle. Since Meeker did so well the day before I decided to try to push a little more on this day's runs. It was a nice run except for some errors in my handling. I got some wide turns and after the teeter I sent Meeker over a jump without any cue as to where he was going afterwards. I then called him over the bar, so he turned over it and dropped the bar. My bad. But we got our Q and a second place ribbon.

Our standard run went pretty well. Meeker Self Released on the dog walk. He's started doing that occasionally ever since I started running his A Frame... Meeker had a perfect running A Frame and I pushed his line just enough to set him up for the weave entry. Dana pointed out that he was a little tentative on the teeter. He's never been on a teeter where you couldn't see the fulcrum at all and I wonder if that had anything to do with it. Surprisingly, even with me baby sitting his teeter contact we took first place.

I didn't put Meeker into Pairs because I hadn't ever seen it and I didn't want to worry about Meeker barking like a fool while the other dog ran the course. It looked like a real lot of fun and I don't think Meeker would have any problem with it. So we will definitely sign up next time.

The final run of the trial was Jumpers. But we had a little excitement right before we ran. We were "on deck", Meeker was in a down and I was kneeling next to him. He was swivelling his head from side to side trying to see the dog on the course. Just as I reached to take his collar he spun his head back to me and poked his eye with my thumb. He let out a squeak and blinked his eye shut. My poor little guy, blinded at an agility trial. Just then the gate steward called "Meeker on the line!". I squawked that I needed a second and someone went ahead of me. Within a couple seconds Meeker was fine and there have been no problems with his eye since. But a scary couple of seconds.

I had decided I should "go for it" down the final run of jumps. I handled it all with Meeker on my right with a push out for the final jump. I sent him over the triple and then took off down the line. I just barely beat Meeker over the next to last jump and he pushed over the last jump. I really should have been a little further ahead, but he covered for me perfectly. Our time was 0.3 secs faster than the next fastest dog so we Q'd and took 1st place. It was a nice finish to a long weekend.

But my weekend wasn't done yet, I had to pack up Meeker and get to For Your Canine to teach flyball that night! Luckily we finished around 4:30 so I had enough time to stop at home and wash up before going to class.

Meeker and I both slept well that night.

I've got some ideas that will stir some folks up! Some agility organization should reward aggressive, fast, and daring handlers. Now I don't want this to in any way increase the difficulty of the sport for the dogs. The dogs are already performing above and beyond; they are the true athletes. I want to reward the athletic and daring handler!

I'd love to find a way to have the team that features not only the fastest dog but also the fastest, most in tune handler be the winner. Every now and then you see a run where the handler is just going full blast, without any hesitation, just attacking the course and their dog racing right with them. The kind of runs where, even at a quiet local trial, the onlookers cheer at the end.

Most Aggressive Handler

Many bicycle races have awards for the "Most Aggressive Rider". These are given out to the rider who tries hardest to win or who attacks the front the most often, or tries a long solo break away. The rider winning the Most Aggressive Rider jersey needn't win the race either (often they don't). As a spectator it is fun to watch the rider who "goes for it" and you really root for them to win.

So why not award extra points or another type of award for the team whose handler really takes handling risks and risks an NQ. I'm thinking of the handler that beats their dog to the end of a running contact and gets in a cross to avoid an off course. Some title that rewards handler speed and daring but doesn't risk injury to the dog.

Every course need not present one of these awards either. While some word-smith could put this into words better than I can, I bet most folks would agree when they see a run where a handler who would deserve to win this award. Heck maybe this could be an audience granted award.

Sprint Points

Another notion agility could take from professional bike riding is incorporating sprints within the course. This could be a sub sequence of the course where the dog and/or handler are timed and the fastest time through the subsequence qualifies for a separate prize. I could imagine this being done on a two or three jump chute on a jumpers course for example. Or it could be around a single obstacle like the dog walk or the weave poles. I especially like the idea of timing the handler and not the dog.

Let's reward handlers for being physically fit and really moving on course!

Most Daring Handler

How about rewarding handlers who handle "outside the box"? Think about all those Advanced/Masters level courses where there might be 100 teams competing and you only see a couple handling variations. You'll see a lot of people who are being cautious just ensuring they get a Q.

I like to see the handler who might layer some obstacles, handle from the opposite side of a contact, take a longer lead out, etc. The handler doing something different than the others and then having it work too.

The caveat would be having the handling still "make sense". I'm sure we've all mishandled a course (once or twice), so you wouldn't want to reward someone whose plan couldn't be successful. But you would want to reward someone who knows their dog's skills and can use them to get where they need to be in an expeditious, or even, risky (in the sense of risking an NQ) way.

Conclusion

We already have games in agility to test, primarily the dog's, special skills. Gamblers, in addition to its strategy aspect, is a game where dogs are rewarded for working away from their handlers. Taken further, while it would be impressive to see a handler stand nearly stationary in the center of a ring and direct their dog through an entire standard course, that is a different kind of skill (we could call it "Super Standard"). I'm just throwing out ideas for rewarding a handler's athleticism.

Maybe some of these notions run the risk of moving agility toward an "X Games" mentality. But it is so thrilling to see a handler who really "goes for it" and it would be great to encourage more handlers to try as long as the dogs stay safe.

So I have to start getting serious about getting into shape, but I'm up for trying to win the "Most Aggressive Handler" award some day. What about you?

Clean Run(C) Magazine is offering a free sample of their great agility magazine online. It is the current December issue so I guess you could call this a holiday gift from Clean Run. Click here to view it.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the dozen readers who placed their Clean Run orders through the link in the left hand menu on my site. With your orders I earned $ 60 in referral fees since July which will help me pay my hosting fees. I've just signed the contract with a larger, faster (aka more expensive) web hosting service and have begun the configuration process... more to come by the end of the year.

Thank you all for your support. I appreciate your thinking to make your purchases through AgilityNerd and I especially appreciate everyone's kind words and encouragement.

As the weather turns colder here in the Midwest we are seeing temperatures dropping below freezing overnight. I was at agility class bright and early this morning and the contacts all had a coating of frost on them. In spite of warnings by the instructor and myself some over eager students were still taking their dogs over the contacts before the sun had melted the frost. Luckily there were no injuries but a few dogs couldn't get up the A Frame...

I've been through rehab twice with Milo and the last thing I'm going to do is risk injuring a dog from a slip off a contact when it can be easily avoided. So when it was Meeker's turn I just took him around the contacts. It was good practice to have him focus on me and not take the obstacles unless I asked him to. By the end of class the ice was melted and I could send him on the contacts safely.

So use your common sense this time of year and don't risk injuring your dog on an icy contact.

I had originally planned to wait until the fall before entering Meeker in his first trial. But due to a fortunate turn of events I took Meeker to his first agility trial two weekends ago. It was a CPE trial at For Your Canine in Schiller Park, IL.

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Ok just a little wintery agility update. The northern suburbs of Chicago got a lot of snow overnight. Here's a jump in my backyard, the bar is at 20 inches so it looks like the snow is at the 12 inch jump cup and about 4 inches of snow on the bar. With Meeker as invigorated by the snow as he is I wouldn't be surprised if he would still clear the jump... Ho Ho Ho.

Snow Jump

I've updated this post because when I got up the next morning the sun was shining and the big spruce and fir trees that ring my backyard looked really nice with the sun shining off the snow. I'd bet the big spruce on the left is probably almost 50 feet high, it is quite a tree. So here are a couple low res shots to give you an idea of our winter wonderland.

Clean Run© Magazine is offering a free sample of their great agility magazine while supplies last. Just click here for details.

I wanted to setup and run the Dearlove Nested Class Course for June 8 and 15 2006 with Milo. I also wanted to try videotaping the runs and posting them using an online service called YouTube that Lisa B uses on her blog. So this post discusses how we handled these courses. I'll only show the final runs (the other failed attempts would be just too tedious for anyone but me to watch).

I had to put the video camera on the tripod pretty far away to get in the whole course and even then part of the tunnel is left out of frame. So the video might be hard to make out online. Let me know what you think. I'll have to look into getting a wide angle lens for my digital video camera. It may be time to get a new video camera while I'm at it. It would be nice to get one with solid state memory to avoid the moving parts associated with digital tape.

Milo's front feet were still taped up from tearing his pads at camp last month so I didn't jump him at full height nor did I try many different handling approaches. As it was we got these runs in just before the rain came...

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I signed Milo up for both days of the Forest City Dog Training Club AKC trial this past weekend. It was held at the Boone County Fairgrounds in Belvidere, IL, the same location as the Car-Dun-Al trial last month. The weather was clear, sunny, in the mid 80s to low 90s with a nice breeze. You could definitely feel the heat in the sun but it was nothing compared to the 100+ degree temps of last weekend.

I volunteered to help with course building and the FCDTC folks were all very nice and made me feel right at home. They had really great worker "benefits" including a big worker raffle each day, plenty of good food and most importantly ice cold drinks. If only the Milo and I ran the courses as well as I ate :^) But there were some very good moments on course and it felt like we were progressing.

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R.A.C.E Agility hosted a NADAC agility trial this past weekend in Crystal Lake, IL. The trial was held at an indoor soccer facility on artificial turf with rubber pellets. It was a nice soft surface with good traction for dogs and handlers. Normally we can have hot and humid weather this time of year, so I was glad for an indoor trial. Of course the weather was beautiful outside... sunny, highs in the low 80s and lower humidity.

I had only signed up for one day of this trial since I've been busy with the non-Agility part of my life a lot lately :^) If this trial stays in the same location next year I'll definitely sign up for both days.

The trial moved along surprisingly quickly. The RACE folks started around 7:30 and we had run 5 courses by 3:00 PM. So I doubt I had as much as an hour of down time the whole day. To help pass the time I helped a little setting up the second Weavers course; I'd rather build courses than any other volunteer activity. As usual all the folks were nice and it was a very supportive atmosphere.

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