IFCS World Agility Champs Individual Snooker with Video
19 May 2010
I was intrigued by J. L. Gauntt’s Individual Snooker course from last weekend’s 2010 IFCS World Agility Championships and decided to set it up in my backyard to give it a try. It appeared that there were a few different ways to do the opening: 5-7-7 which was pretty straight forward, 6-7-7 which was a little harder and 7-7-7 which I knew would be tricky for me to do with Meeker.
I videotaped our attempts over a couple days,
using my new higher camera mount Going to Great HeightsMy Home Dog Agility iPhone Recording Setup, and annotated my handling for anyone who wants to "play along at home". In order to show my different opening handling strategies I've redrawn the course with only the wing jumps I used and in non-metric units below.Layout in my Yard
The 5-7-7 opening sequence was the one that jumped out at me when I first looked at the course. The only tricky section is getting from the second red jump to the start of the 7 combo. I wrapped that red and took Meeker between 5a and the tunnel which was a good line to the 7a jump.
5-7-7 Opening Sequence
The 6-7-7 opening sequence was a little harder. In the video I didn’t actually walk it, so you’ll see how I messed up by not driving to the tunnel after the first red jump.
6-7-7 Opening Sequence
The 7-7-7 sequence is the toughest and I’m not sure even if I handled without error that we’d be fast enough to get through the whole course under 47 seconds. In that case we’d have lost the 7 points for the final obstacle; a case where greed hurts. But Meeker is a lot faster at a trial than he is running in the backyard. I tried this sequence a bunch of times on the video because I knew I’d have trouble bringing Meeker past the 4a, 4b, 2, and 7b obstacles when going from the first red jump to 7c. It is just the kind of thing we need to practice. So check out the video to see our successes and failures…
7-7-7 Opening Sequence
In general going from 7c to the tunnel was a place where crossing on both sides of jump 7c was pretty much required (crossing on the entry to the weaves didn’t feel right, but was possible) but it never felt right. Going from 2-3 after 7c emphasized the value of having your dog see you cross on the entry to a straight tunnel. When I had Meeker on my left entering the tunnel he never considered tuning right coming out. But if I Rear Crossed Learning the Rear CrossRear Cross the entrance to the tunnel and talked to him in the tunnel he was prepared for the turn. Here’s the video:
I hope someone else gives this a try or saw the WACs live or on video and can add some comments on how you or the pros ran this course.
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