This weekend was our State Agility Trial. We had 2 qualifying rounds where the top 7 in each class go into a final. I had both Epic and Dancer entered and before we left home Friday afternoon, the girls and I had a little "pep" talk :-) Now I won't bore you all with what was discussed.....but lets just say Dancer's list of things she had to focus on was ALOT longer than Epic's, and above all else she also had to pay attention and.....LISTEN......LOL...I'm laughing because listening ISN'T high on the list of priorities for Miss Dancer.
The first run of the evening went to Epic in Masters Agility. She had some really nice parts, extending where I would have hoped, and had some nice acceleration in the last half of the course. I would have preferred her to go deeper into the contact of the Aframe, rather than reverting to her "original" running Aframe, but this is a work in progress so I think I need a little patience. She had several knocked bars, which for Epic is uncommon. It's not uncommon for her to knock a bar here and there (I've been calling her "one-bar" Epic for a little while now) but to have multiple go down on all courses concerns me a little.
The second run for the night was Dancer in Excellent Agility. The judge was Richard Barville and he did a very do-able course. After the trial at Cloverdale where I let Dancer get away with breaking her start-line and then spent the next 24hrs berating and cursing myself for the stupidity of it....there was no way I was going to let that happen again. So.......I set her up on the start-line told her to stay and as I was walking away she started to lean forward. Now she didn't move any feet and her bottom stayed firmly planted on the ground.......BUT.....this is Dancer and if she thinks that she can get away with leaning , she will DEFINATELY think she'll get away with stepping forward. SO I stopped and looked at her and said "If you want to play the game of agility then you need to sit there until you're told you can go, so you have a think about that and let me know" then I turned my back and walked into position.....stopped....turned to face Dancer.....and OMG she was sitting there proud as punch waiting to have some FUN!!!
So that was how the run of a lifetime started :-) She kept all her bars up, did all her contacts, stayed on the table for the WHOLE 5 secs!! She hit her weave entry AND stayed in them ......and ......PASSED!!!!! She not only passed but she also WON the class!!!! AND got into the Finals!!!! And would you know it...I got every run that evening, EXCEPT that one LOL!!!
Now the excitement doesn't stop there folks :-)
I thought it was her 3rd pass in this class, but apparently she gained a extra card somewhere along the last 4yrs (yes this is how long she's been in Excellent Agility!!) so she actually has 4 qualifing cards, which means only one more pass and she's got her title!!!! Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!
The Final was a whole different story, and wasn't meant to be for Dancer, though she did some REALLY nice stuff. She broke her start line, I know I've just gone on about NOT letting her get away with that, BUT in my defense, IT IS a final. For me this is the moment I've trained for. So I'm going to let her get away with it. Finals are the place where people let their dogs get away with not holding their contacts to gain that extra 0.5 sec, so even though it's going to probably take me ALL week to get her startline back, I'm glad we gave it our all and I'm sooooooo excited that Dancer got the chance to have a shot in the final :-)
The AMAZING photo above was taken by Robyn Evans. Thankyou soooooo much for sharing it, you've really captured Dancers PASSION for the sport of agility :-) She also took many other BRILLIANT shots of the Finals hopefully this link is right :-)
www.flickr.com/photos/westozagilityfotos
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