Latigo AKC Trial - we have Heat, sort-of...

(Love this pic of Rip floating over the dogwalk)

Rip and Skye played AKC agility at our nearby facility, Latigo Trails, this weekend. Latigo is only 10 minutes from home, so I rarely pass up an opportunity to trial there. They told us they would have finally installed heat in the arena this winter, but they were only able to install some radiant heat over the small bleachers. It was appreciated, as we had an area to sit and warm up, but the rest of the arena probably never hit 40 degrees all weekend. Burrrrr! Maybe by our March trial...

Anyway, it was an OK weekend performance-wise. Skye went 2/4, getting Q's in both his JWW runs, but no Q's in Standard this weekend. Saturday's standard was not good, and I ended up pulling him from the course at the table which was obstacle #8. He had popped his weaves, then entered pole 2 when I made him redo, and then he fell off the side of the dogwalk since he was looking at the judge and not where he was going. Then on the table, he popped up before the count was done, so Mr. No Focus was pulled before we could embarrass ourselves any further.

Skye's Standard run on Sunday was much better, with the only fault being the AFrame contact. I have a training issue to work on with regards to contacts where there is a tunnel between me and the contact. Skye has a tendency to come off the side of the obstacle when I am not right there next to it - I really need to set this up and proof it in training.

So, I am bummed that we did not get a Double Q this weekend, but you gotta be happy with a steady 50% Q rate.

Mr Rip had a fun time this weekend. He always runs with such enthusiasm and seems to have a great time just doing agility. He only got 1 Q in his 4 runs, but it was a Standard Q for once. I am also happy to say he only dropped 1 bar all weekend. He had a great Open Jumpers run on Sunday with just that 1 bar down. His other Open JWW run on Saturday wasn't bad, but he did pop his weaves and then have a run-by on a jump followed by a couple offcourse jumps. He DID hit a really tough weave entry that almost no novice dogs hit on Saturday.

We do have A LOT to work on of course, and trialing makes this more apparent. I had another episode of Rip running by the dogwalk, just like I had in his previous trial. He did that on Saturday. I also had him pop out of the weaves on both of Saturday's runs. He is popping out when I pass him - so many more reps needed there with reinforcing of him staying in the poles and doing his job. I am also seeing a deteriorated performance in his teeter. He is leaping when it hits the ground. He didn't get called on this, but it's not his performance, and it is getting worse.

Finally, just like I have done on his dogwalk, I am going to have to introduce a stop at the bottom of the AFrame until he understands what his job is. He missed a Standard Q on Saturday by leaping the AFrame again. He's probably missed 5 or 6 Q's in Standard by leaping contacts, though now its the frame instead of dogwalk.

So, in addition to our normal training, we will be stepping up training of:

Teeter leapage

AFrame stop

Weave pops

Dogwalk runby

Videos to follow.