Car-Dun-Al AKC Trial - Jun 18, 2005
19 Jun 2005
We only signed up for Saturday at Car-Dun-Al so we could try our first USDAA trial on Sunday. I didn’t realize until the certificate came in the mail, but the one Q in Standard we earned at the NOCI trial last month moved Milo up to Standard Excellent A.
The trial was held at the fairgrounds in Belvidere, IL. We were graced with beautiful sunny skies and temperatures only in the low 70s and reasonable humidity. It was perfect agility weather; unfortunately our runs were far from perfect. We had a pretty disappointing Standard run and an acceptable Jumpers run.
Excellent Standard
The Excellent standard course was judged by Karen Paulukaitis and looked really tight after running NADAC last weekend! It also seemed to have a lot of off course traps. Milo and I had a pretty disastrous run with only a few saving moments.
I used a two jump Lateral Lead Out and Milo handled it perfectly. But I held my ground too long (making sure he didn’t drop the second bar) so I was late in directing him to the A Frame and earning a run by. The Lateral Lead Out did keep him from even looking at the off course dog walk.
Almost got the A Frame touch - Milo was almost all the way down on the contact and released himself. He then jumped very early for the triple and took out the top two bars… that caused him to be out of place for the next jump so we earned another run by. Got the pull and send to the tunnel and the Front Cross Learning the Front Cross - VideoFront Cross over the jump to the chute (at least something worked right). I was too far behind him out of the chute and he had another run by. Got the Serpentine Serpentine Handling TechniquesSerpentine Sequence with a Rear Cross Learning the Rear CrossRear Cross to the Dog Walk. Got all but one foot on the 2o2o and he waited perfectly for my release. Good table sit. Did a nice Over-Come to the teeter. Very close on the touch for the teeter. Rear Cross pulled him out of the weaves. Took the last two obstacles just fine.
All in all a pretty big disaster. Contacts improved over last week but still not there.
Open Jumpers
The Open Jumpers course was judged by Bonnie Drabek. The opening was two jumps in line with a 90 degree right turn into the near side of a macaroni shaped tunnel. On exit from the tunnel it was a slight turn into the weaves. I used a slight V-Set V-Set Handling AlternativesV-Set between the two jumps to set Milo up for the correct side of the tunnel. Of course Milo didn’t come all the way to me as he should have. But he did read the turn into the tunnel correctly. Got the Front Cross wrap around my hip into the weaves perfectly.
Then it was a big curving jump sequence containing the triple into a 180 with the tunnel as an off course. Milo dropped the second bar in the sequence and it wasn’t clear why… Took rest of the sequence perfectly with good distance - no problem with the triple jump either.
The closing sequence had a jump tweaked from the original course plan that really made it more challenging than expected. Originally the two jumps were on a curve to the left and then the final jump was off to the right. Instead the course was setup so the second jump was laterally offset so big dogs landed on a left lead and had to immediately change Lead Leg to their right. If the handler waited to change the dog’s lead to after the second jump they’d run by the third jump. My only handling choice was to use a Rear Cross before the second jump and I just didn’t time it correctly so Milo stalled and ultimately spun before the second jump.
Even with the two errors I felt good about the run. Milo handled the long jumping sections well and I only had a single handling error.
Practice Tasks
- Jump chute exercises
- Come to hand exercises
- Reinforce 2o2o contact performance
- Rear Cross weave entries
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