Obedience Training

Since our last trial a couple of weeks ago, we have spent some time working on obedience, in addition to the usual agility and flyball practices. It is coming along slowly – unfortunately I have to do some “untraining” of a sit between my legs that was designed for agility, but doesn’t work for obedience. I had trained it in the hopes that I could get a better start line stay, but then was warned that sometimes a dog will take off from between the legs and the handler is stuck behind the first jump, so I never used it. Now, when I ask Cody to come and sit in front of me, he obliges, but then when I ask him afterwards to sit by my side, he keeps popping his head between my closed legs! I don’t think that will get us any points in the obedience ring!

As far as heeling goes, we’ve made a little progress, but have a long way to go. He is great for a few yards and then wants to shoot ahead. It will require patience and lots of practice, I guess!

I am not too worried about the sit and down stays from a distance (although you would think I would be given his lack of a start line stay) – so far he seems pretty solid with that and hopefully it will hold up during the testing.

I am headed out of Tokyo today for the holidays, unfortunately once again leaving the dogs behind. It’s just too much to ask them to spend 14 hours on a plane unless they really need to. I will resume posting after my return in the middle of January. Happy holidays to all!

Level 2

Cody and I left Tokyo at 4am on Saturday to head up to Matsumoto, near Nagano, for our final agility trial of the calendar year. I had been given estimates of 3 to 4 hours of driving time to get there and I didn’t want to risk getting there late and missing our walk through, so we left plenty early.

I cruised along at 120 km/hr (75 mph) practically the entire way, as there was very little traffic and we made it there in 2 ½ hours. The site was beautiful, surrounded by mountains, some snow covered. (You may remember that the winter Olympics ten or so years ago were held in Nagano.) It was very chilly in the early morning when we arrived, but the sun was out and not the rain/snow that I had feared and seen in the weather predictions.

Our jumpers run was first. The walk throughs for all jump heights were completed before the course was run. When it was our turn to run, Cody and I made it through with no errors, so we were off to a good start. When the results were posted, I saw that we came in 3rd out of 120 dogs in the large class. I looked more closely and saw that only 3 dogs had clean runs – I had thought that it was a nice smooth running course, but I guess others didn’t find it so. There were some challenges, but of the teams that I watched, most of the errors happened in the beginning, either with a bar dropping at jump 2, or an off-course to jump 5.

Jumpers Level 2

Our second run, agility, which counts towards moving to the next level, wasn’t as successful. It had a couple of challenges and I walked it many different ways, made a decision on how to run the course and then changed the way that I wanted to handle it based on errors I observed with the large dogs running before us. I made the classic mistake of not working each obstacle when I ran the course with Cody because I was thinking about the next step before completing the current one. So Cody, who was running very fast, leapt over the A-frame contact because he could see I was focused on the next obstacle. Here is the course that we ran:

Agility Level 2

The error that I had observed happened when handlers ran with the dog on left from the A-frame to Jump 13. The dogs would come out of the chute and curl towards the handler, missing the take-off side of the jump. Handling the A-frame with the dog on right allowed for a pull to the take off side of the jump. Then it was necessary to fly over to the other side of the ring in order to get the correct side of the tunnel. Coming out of the tunnel the dogs were facing the tire and unless the handler got the dog’s head at this point to send them to the dog walk, they headed to the tire. This is what happened to Cody because I was busy running down the dog walk to get a front cross in before he reached the contact. Oh well – we were happy with our 3rd place in the jumpers course and got to stand on the podium again.

Third Place

Our next agility trial will take place on January 30th, and then there will be a flyball trial the next day. I will be away from Cody for 5 weeks over the holidays and am most hopeful that he will not be chubby again when I get back as we’ll only have a couple of weeks to get back into shape.

Meanwhile, we need to start working on obedience. I had mentioned in an earlier post that a basic level of obedience is required in order to move from Level 2 to Level 3. Cody and I have only worked on enough obedience to get by in agility (and even that is not perfect, as evidenced by his lack of a start line stay). To move ahead, he has to learn 10 obedience maneuvers and then the judge (who is the head of the training center) will choose 3 of these maneuvers for Cody to perform. I have started by teaching him to heel, but so far it isn’t working out too well! If I hold the leash in my left hand and a toy or food in my right hand, he just keeps jumping up at my right hand. I can see that this will require a lot of patience on my part!

Cody and the crows
Tokyo has quite a few crows, who are noisy and can be pests with any sort of garbage left out. When I lived here before, I had heard stories of crows dive-bombing heads of hair. Not a pleasant thought, but I had never known it to happen to anyone. The noise the crows make, however, does make me think of Tokyo if I happen to hear it when I am elsewhere.
One morning I let Cody outside in the yard attached to our apartment, and was startled 10 minutes later when I heard him barking incessantly. I have discouraged his barking here, as we are in close quarters and I worry that it will disturb the neighbors. I ran outside to see what was going on and found Cody on his hind legs with his front paws on the cement wall divider between our yard and the neighboring yard. Right above him on the top of the wall, about a foot higher that Cody’s paws reached, was a crow, staring down at Cody as he barked. What guts!

Then last week Cody and I had finished our agility lesson and practice and I was throwing the ball for him. He surprised me during one of the throws by not returning to me once he caught the ball, but ran off in the other direction on the huge field. I called, not understanding what it was he was doing, until I saw a crow sitting nearby taunting Cody. These birds do not scare easily!

Flyball Competition

On Sunday, Cody was entered in a flyball trial, in both team and individual competition. I’m still learning the rules, which is taking time due to the language issues and to my not having run any dogs in flyball in the US. I learned from the last trial that we attended, that team competition is a tournament where the winners of two teams who play against each other move ahead. The individual competition is solely based on time, the best of three scores.

Cody had his individual competition first – he now runs well up and back over the hurdles, but the actual ball catching is inconsistent. Sometimes he’s very efficient, other times not. This time he was the most efficient at catching the ball during the second of the three runs, but that was the same run that the lab in the other lane decided that Cody’s hurdles looked more interesting than his own, and started jumping them just ahead of Cody on the return, slowing Cody (who was polite about the whole thing) down somewhat. It was still his best time, oh well – he came in 7th place and received a pretty pink rosette.

The team competition came after and was even more interesting: the drawing for which teams play which pitted our team against the top team of our club, so we went into it knowing that it would be one round and that was it. Thank goodness that was the expectation because for some reason during the second run, Cody became very distracted, similar to our first flyball trial where my husband had come and Cody spent the whole time watching him instead of the flyball machine. Since then I don’t let my husband come to any trials, as it’s very difficult to get Cody to concentrate in these conditions. It was Cody’s turn to go and I sent him to get the ball from the flyball machine, he ran up the 4 hurdles, skipped the ball machine and ran down the neighboring hurdles while looking in the crowd for what I assume was my husband. Crazy dog!! Fortunately the other team was not affected and they went on to win the competition.

The trial site was on the edge of a large river, the Edogawa. It was a beautiful day and there were sports activities set up on both sides of the river as well as on the river in the form of water skiing and jet skiing.

Flyball Trial Site with Wave Kids team members - Note the jet skis on the river

One of our team members told me a story about their black lab, who in the same flyball competition site two years prior, had spotted an orange buoy in the river and thinking it was a ball, jumped into the water and swam out to it. This caused quite a commotion, as you can imagine, and there were people lined up all along the water front and a couple of motor boats who tried to guide the dog back to shore. On Sunday, the same dog skirted around his handler after a flyball run and started heading toward the water – fortunately members of the group had lined up between the dog and the water and kept him from plunging in again.

Our last activity for the year will be an agility trial on November 21st in Nagano. It will be our first time competing at Level 2, so it should be interesting! I have just learned another rule for levels 2 and 3 agility: if there are 3 faults during a run, the dog is whistled out of the ring. (They are whistled off immediately if the dog takes an off course obstacle.) Hopefully we’ll be able to stay in the ring to complete our runs!

In a final note, someone showed me the November issue of Dog Sports Journal in our agility class last week, and Cody and I are pictured in there from our Level 2 Jumpers run at the non-JKC trial we attended last month. It is one of the larger pictures, as we had won the class. Our appearance in this magazine has given us a small level of notoriety – on Saturday I was in a park with Cody along with a friend and her dog when we encountered her dog obedience instructor from long ago. The man was very interested in Cody – he had seen his picture in the magazine, but had never seen a Nova Scotia (as they refer to them here) in the flesh. He made numerous comments as he was examining Cody, but unfortunately they weren’t translated. I can only imagine that they were all positive notes, how could they not be??

Two Days in Sendai: Agility and Flyball

Cody and I have just returned from our two-day agility trial in Sendai. We were required to compete at Level 1 as the processing for the move up was not completed in time, so I just decided that we would make the best of it and have fun. And fun we had: Cody qualified on all four of his runs, with two visits to the podium to receive rosettes on Sunday (5th place in jumpers, 6th in agility).

5th Place Jumpers

6th Place Agility (Standard)

Here is a video of the Sunday Jumpers run: (You will see that we are still having start line issues…)

We also had a Flyball competition on Sunday, and Cody’s team, composed of a very fast Corgi (Will, aka Miru, whose picture is in a past post), Cody and two border collies, came in first place. The final heat was against another team from our club, “The Wave Kids.” We were given a nice trophy and 3 points towards our Flyball Championships (20 points are required to become a champion, and they are only awarded to the winning teams). My teammates decided that I should take home the trophy (they’ve won in the past, so I suspect that they each have trophies on display at home). They suggested that I fill it with beer and drink from it in celebration – sounds good to me!

Cody with ribbons and trophy

I have noticed over time that communication with my group of friends has become better, mostly due to their improving English, although I am taking Japanese lessons, so I hope that the balance will eventually change. There are still some times where I am puzzled, and here are a couple of those situations that occurred over the weekend:

Tacos: On Friday, after having met a couple of friends at a rest stop along the way to the competition site, we arrived in the afternoon and reserved parking and tenting spots for our group, and then decided to visit the discount shopping center next door. As we entered the mall, I noticed a small restaurant called Taco-ya. “Ya”is the Japanese word for shop and I was very surprised to see that there was a taco restaurant in this city when I had never noticed one in Tokyo (although I have seen products to make tacos in all the local grocery stores). I commented on it and my friends asked me if I like tacos and I told them I did. We continued on with our shopping, and later went out to dinner.

The next day someone came with a plastic container of warm round fried balls of food and proudly told me they had gotten some tacos for me. I looked at them quizzically and took one, assuming it would have the familiar spicy beef flavor inside. I bit in and found something chewy and slightly fishy tasting and asked what it was – Octopus. I then learned that the Japanese name for Octopus is Taco!!

Coy: During agility competitions in the past, I had noticed that a number of dogs had a similar name which sounds like the word “Coy”. Nice, short name. This past weekend some of the handlers were calling their dogs away from off course traps and I noticed that there were an unusual number of dogs with that name, enough so that I realized it probably wasn’t even a name at all – I asked, and it turns out “koi” is the word for “come”. Now that made more sense!

The kindness of my group of friends never ceases to amaze me – here are a couple of examples of many:

Navigation: On Friday night after dinner I was programming my navigation system to take me to the pension (Japanese style bed and breakfast) where Cody and I would be staying – the rest of the group was going to stay at the campgrounds in their campers. They then told me not to bother because they were going to lead the way there for me – one hour away! So they drove their two campers (small van type campers, not full sized ones) for one hour each way, just to make sure I got to where I needed to be.

Support: The agility trial ran until after dark on Sunday night and the award ceremonies didn’t take place until the end of the competition. This group waited with me, rather than head on the long drive home, so that they could take pictures with my camera and cheer while I was up on the podium (there was one other ribbon recipient in the group, who received a third place rosette).

Friends

At Last!

The stars, sun, moon and planets must have been aligned properly last Saturday because Cody and I finally got our third Level 1 leg at the JKC agility trial, and we can now move on to Level 2. However, as it takes 3 weeks to process move ups, we will be running at Level 1 at our next trial, a 2 day trial in Sendai (Oct. 24 and 25), five hours away. This will be our last agility competition this year, as I am unable to attend the two remaining trials due to visiting family and travel plans. So we will make our Level 2 debut at the end of January 2010.

We continue to practice flyball and Cody is showing more speed. The main issue that remains is that he’s inconsistent with the amount of time he takes to catch the ball from the machine and start back over the jumps. I am hoping that with practice, he will become more efficient. His next competition will be in Sendai on the same weekend as the agility trial. He is entered in both team and individual events, so we’ll see how it goes.

In other news, we had a typhoon here in Tokyo last week. I awoke at 4am to a voice over the loudspeaker on the street – I imagine that they were telling people to stay inside as that was when the worst of the typhoon was hitting the area. (It was the first time I realized that the streets are equipped with a speaker system, although I should have figured it out because every day at 5pm there is music played throughout Tokyo telling children that it’s time for them to go home.) Other than being awakened from a nice slumber and the cancellation of my agility classes, the wind and rain didn’t affect me too much, but from what I understand, it played havoc on public transportation.

Cultural Snippets and More Agility

Since I haven’t posted for a while, I have an assortment of amusing cultural experiences to relate:

First, regarding the picture I put in my last post of “Miru, the amazing Corgi”, Kyoko (the dog’s owner and handler) laughed at my spelling of her dog’s name in an e-mail that I had sent her. It turns out the dog’s name is Will! It’s just pronounced as Meeroo – the Japanese language doesn’t have a “w” or an “ll” sound, so the “w” becomes “m” and the “ll” becomes “roo”, with the “i” in the middle sounding like “ee”. Definitely something lost in translation!

Following introductory remarks at our most recent agility trial, attendees were invited to do some stretching exercises. Music, similar to what was played in my daughter’s ballet class when she was 3 years old, was broadcast over the loud speakers and we all performed stretches following a leader. Although this was a first for me, I am aware that it is not unusual for employees of some Japanese companies to engage in a similar activity before starting work every day.

The food “stall” at this same trial was a hot dog truck, with the delicacy pronounced as “hotto dogu”. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to try one to see if it really was “N.Y. Style”.

Hotto Dogu Truck

And now for the agility: Two weekends ago Cody and I competed in another non-JKC trial in order to get some additional practice on start lines (which Cody held following a couple of scoots and “no”s from me). We ran the Level 2 courses, the most difficult offered, and won the Jumpers run. As a prize, we were giving another large bag of rice, freshly harvested. We now have a cabinet full of rice, having barely made a dent in the ziplock that we had won at our previous visit there!

We attended a JKC trial this past weekend and had a similar experience to what my friends in the NJ area have been experiencing – deluges of rain and at least 6” of mud as a result. It was very difficult to negotiate the courses, but that wasn’t the cause of our downfall (again!). Instead, it was a one step forward rather than lateral at the bottom of the dog walk, which led to Cody taking the wrong side of the tunnel. And so we continue trying to get our final Level 1 leg – I never thought that it would take this long!

Wet Agility Trial

Silver Week

Last weekend was a 5-day weekend (Saturday through Wednesday), celebrating the Autumnal Equinox along with a couple of other holidays (Respect for the Aged Day and a public holiday). This string of holidays is called “Silver Week“, named after a similar grouping of holidays in May, called “Golden Week”. Cody and I attended a JKC agility trial on Monday and his first Flyball trial on Tuesday.

The agility trial was the first of a series that we will attend in the next month, totaling 5 days. Our last trial was in the middle of July and Cody is still sporting a few extra pounds from his vacation, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Fortunately the skies were cloudy, giving Cody the slightly cooler weather that he likes. Our jumpers run was first and he ran nicely, coming in 8th amongst very tight times. I wish I could say the same about the standard run – for the most part it went well, but a handling bauble resulted in his taking an off-course jump near the end. Since this was the run that would count towards moving to Level 2, for the moment we remain in Level 1.

In a previous post I had mentioned that it takes 3 weeks for JKC to process move-ups. Given that we have so many trials coming up, had we qualified on Monday, we still would have had to compete at Level 1 until later in October. The trial dates are such that if we qualify at our next JKC competition, October 3rd, we would move to Level 2 at the same time as we would have for a qualification on Monday. So, the pressure is on!!

Tuesday was the Flyball competition. Cody performed admirably well, but the team, dubbed “Miracle Star”, didn’t make it past one round. Nonetheless, it was great fun and there were expressions of surprise when people found out that this was Cody’s first trial. His next competition will be towards the end of October, along with a two-day agility trial, at the site in Sendai (5 hours away), where we went in July. He will be on a different team, along with an amazing Corgi, Miru, and two Border Collies. Unfortunately, I don‘t have any pictures of Cody with the flyball machine, but here is one of Miru:

Miru, the amazing Corgi

A couple of other notes, as it has been a while since I have posted anything. Last weekend after agility practice a couple of my Flyball friends asked if I wanted to join them for lunch. I accepted their invitation and figured that we would go to a Japanese restaurant where there are no menus in English (something I am reluctant to do on my own). I followed them in my car and laughed when we turned into the restaurant parking lot – they were going to “Billy Bronco’s Steakhouse”! And while it was true that the menus were not in English, the steak and burgers were easy to select from the menu full of pictures!

And finally, the last of my updates on the rice paddy, I promise! Since the rice was harvested, there have been two developments – the paddy was burned:

Burned Rice Paddy

And then the soil turned over, completing the full cycle.

End of Rice Paddy Cycle

Back in Tokyo

I am back in Tokyo, having returned less than a week ago. My reunion with the dogs was sweet, and for the most part they looked great, except that Cody is FAT! He must have gained 5 lbs (which is a lot on a 45 lb dog!!). There are only a few short weeks to get him into shape before our next agility trial (Sept. 21st) and our first flyball competition (Sept. 22nd).

We have been to agility classes twice since my return, one session at the school and one on the field. While we have run the courses mostly clean, the times have been on the sluggish side. Hopefully that will be resolved once my chubby partner gets back into shape!

I was disappointed to discover that the rice paddy next to the agility field had been harvested and all that was left were brown knobs. Oh well, at least I won’t have to worry any more about Cody making a mad dash down there to relieve himself!

Harvested Rice Paddy

Yesterday we had a flyball practice – we drove an hour and arrived at a little slip of land that we had to back our cars into and out of because the access was so tight. There were about 15 people and 4 or 5 teams of 4 dogs each. First the dogs ran individually for training and then we ran as teams. Miraculously, Cody remembered how to get the ball from the flyball machine the proper way (pressing the pedal rather than going on top of the equipment to the back where the ball is). He was very fast over the hurdles to the ball, but once he had the ball, he wasn’t in any rush to make his way back. We worked on that a bit and I think he picked up some speed. When we were running against other teams, he got distracted once and skipped some of the hurdles coming back. Still more to work on before the competition in a couple of weeks!

In an interesting note regarding agility, I found out that in order to move from Level 2 to Level 3, the JKC requires an obedience title or certificate (CD2, Companion Dog, second level). I believe that we don’t need to get these titles through competition, but through a school (which can be done at the agility training center that Cody and I attend). I am in the process of confirming that information, but either way, it will force me to work with Cody on obedience, something that I haven’t done enough of, as evidenced by the difficulties I have with him walking on leash.

In other news, Cody and I showed up again in the Japanese Dog Sports Journal – this time we merited a large photo. The picture was taken at the Tskuba trial where we had won the Level 2 agility run (this wasn’t a JKC trial, so we were not limited to running Level 1). It was a nice shot with Cody clearing the 26” jump by a good margin of space.

And finally, the reality of living in Japan set in a couple of days ago when I experienced my first earthquake since I had lived here 10 years ago. The shaking seemed to go on forever, certainly long enough for me not to question what was happening. It wasn’t particularly strong, just a gentle swaying that shook the leaves on the plants. The most frightening earthquake that I had experienced when I lived here before was a sudden jolt, very short, very strong with some things falling off shelves. My Cavalier, Zach, was sleeping on the couch and jumped off before I felt anything – amazing what dogs can sense before they happen! This time Zach slept through the whole thing; Cody was in the yard and when I checked on him, he didn’t seem disturbed in the least.

Gone Fishin’

I found out a couple of days ago that there are a couple of pictures of Cody and me in the Japanese magazine, “Dog Sports Journal”. Besides agility, this magazine covers the whole range of dog sports, including flyball, Frisbee, obedience, tracking, and conformation. It contains many photos, the average size about 1” or 2” by 1.5” in color and some in black and white. I was excited that we were included, as there were only 17 color photos of the 150 or so dogs competing at our level at the trial that they were covering! The second photo is a small black and white one of us on the dais later at that same trial. Very cool!

The past couple of weeks since the competition in Sendai have been busy. The following weekend we took a trip with the dogs down to Shimoda, a small town on the coast of the Izu Peninsula (just south of Tokyo). The ocean was too cold for me, but Cody enjoyed it.

Cody swimming off the coast in Shimoda

The area was just beautiful, with green mountains reaching down to the beaches.

Beach in Shimoda

We drove back through the center of the peninsula through the mountain range – also gorgeous.

Cody and I have attended agility classes regularly – the heat and high humidity requiring many breaks to cool down between runs. We are working hard to reinforce the basics: including start line stays and contacts. Hopefully this repetition will pay off at our next trial in September (on the 21st).

We also managed to squeeze in another flyball practice this week – by the end of the session Cody ran the full course, 4 hurdles up, caught the ball and ran 4 hurdles back. I’d like to see a little more speed on the way back, but think that he was slow due to the same heat and high humidity. I suspect we’ll have to revisit how to use the flyball machine in September, as he only just got the idea towards the end of the training session that he wasn’t supposed to jump ON the machine to get the ball in the back.

I am headed back to the US tomorrow, and will be gone from my dogs and Japan for a month. It was a tough decision to leave the dogs behind, but in the end I think they will be happier not having to ride the airplane for two 14-hour stints. I‘ll be back with additional posts in September…..

Two Day Agility Trial in Sendai

The site was a 5-hour drive from Tokyo. I had arranged to stay at a small pet friendly place another 40 minutes from the trial site, and was prepared to make the trip on my own.

Before I go any further, I need to give a little background information: My car is a 2003 Land Rover Discovery, and a few days before leaving, I had hit the tire on the back passenger side against a cement block while going through the Japanese version of an EZ Pass lane – a hazard of driving on the opposite side of the road. The side of the aging tire has a gash in it and there is a tiny leak, but the car guy told me it would probably be OK for the trip as long as I didn’t exceed 100 kilometers per hour (about 62 mph). So, needless to say, I was a little nervous about making the trip on my own between the tire issue and the possibility of getting very lost (although I did have my navigation system or “navi” as they call it here – they aren’t foolproof).

A few days before departure, I was fortunate to discover that a few of the women from Flyball were planning on driving up on Friday afternoon. They offered to meet me at a rest stop and then I could follow them. They had plans to drive up to the trial site and continue on to a place where we could practice some agility. This was a great relief to me, and I met them at the rest stop as scheduled (although I arrived 30 minutes after they did as I had encountered traffic in Tokyo – they live in the suburbs.) We started off and an hour or so later they pulled into a gas station in a rest stop. While our gas tanks were being filled, one of the women came to my car and said “switchy driver” – I guessed that she was offering to give me a driving break, but I told her I was fine. Then she asked if I would drive faster – they would like to go as high as 160kph (100mph!!) I know they were worried about the time as it was going to be tight to fit everything in before dark at 7pm. I started to try and explain my situation, but it was clear that they didn’t understand, so I let it go. I was then faced with a decision to go on my own or to have the comfort of their company but realize the possibility that my tire might blow – I decided to go ahead and follow them and just hope for the best. They also told me to be careful of police while we were going fast – there are patrol cars as well as cameras mounted over the highway. The official speed limit is 80kph (50mph) but as long as the car is going less than 120kph (75mph), then no ticket would be issued. If caught going 120kph or above, there is a 2 month automatic suspension of the driver’s license.

Off we went. Fortunately there was enough traffic on the 2 lane highway that we were only able to reach 150kph (90mph) for a short period and most of the time traveled around 130kph (80mph). As we drove along, I started to notice a change in the scenery – verdant mountains and bright green rice paddies in the valleys.

We arrived at the trial site at around 5pm. It was a beautiful location – a large flat area surrounded by mountains. The air was fresh and cool, a huge departure from the muggy air I had left behind in Tokyo. We staked out our tent sites and then set off for the agility practice field about an hour away. Again I followed them as they raced through the winding roads trying to get to the practice site by 6pm. We did make it in one piece (although one of the dogs in the other vehicle ended up with motion sickness!) Cody and I were very happy to run around the agility field after having been cooped up in the car all day – it was the perfect thing for both of us at that moment!

The plan was to have dinner next – I was concerned because I had made arrangements with the place that Cody and I were staying to arrive at 8pm, and here it was after 7pm and I was still far away. One of the women asked if she could call the “hotel” (more like a bed and breakfast) to find out if I could arrive later and thus could join the women for dinner. During her conversation with the owner of the B&B, it was revealed that the navigation systems don’t work in that area. Without my knowing (as I couldn’t understand the conversation), my new friends made arrangements for us to have dinner in a restaurant that was on the way to the B&B and then planned to have me follow them to the B&B, as they had gotten good directions from the owner. This was bringing them 80 minutes out of their way, as they planned to camp overnight at the trial site. This was just one example of the pure kindness of the people that I have met in Japan….

We had a fun dinner in a Korean BBQ place with a small charcoal grill on the table and you cook the food yourself. We sampled Sendai beef, famous and very good! After a hearty meal, we headed to the B&B and I was in bed by 11pm (with my alarm set for 5am).

Day 1 of the agility trial:
The temperature was a bit warmer than the evening before, but still reasonable. The Level 1 Large dogs were up first in the jumpers ring. Cody and I had a nice run, but unfortunately he dropped a bar along the way. I wasn’t too concerned as it was more important that we have a clean run in the standard class in order to get a leg to move toward Level 2. We did end up with a clean run in the Standard class, so now we had two legs towards Level 2.

At this trial there were no Level 3 runs offered, but those who usually run Level 3, were able to enter the trial at Level 2. Clean runs in Level 2 and 3 Standard courses allow for points towards a championship and super-championship. All the Level 2 runs followed the Level 1 runs – I enjoyed watching my comrades from the training center run the courses. The courses were difficult and many competitors had to leave the ring early due to an off-course taken by their dog.

During the afternoon, plans were made for dinner. The driver from the day before offered to come and pick me up at the B&B so that I could have a drink at dinner. She was going to pick up a couple who was also staying in the same place I was – again, another very kind gesture! There were 10 of us at dinner – we went to a sushi place and I was happy to have my kappa-machi (cucumber) and a wonderful bowl of crab soup. As we enjoyed our meal, accompanied by beer, sake and lots of laughter, I realized that this could easily be a scene following an agility trial in New Jersey, and here I was on the other side of the world! The only difference was that I only understood parts of the conversation, but that didn’t really bother me – I was so happy to have been included!

Day 2 of the agility trial:
The schedule was the same as the previous day – the Level 1 Large class would go first. Cody and I had a nice clean run, so the day started off right! The standard course didn’t look impossible, so I had my hopes set on getting our third leg towards moving up to Level 2. Apparently it takes 3 weeks for JKC to make level changes and since our next trial isn’t until September, this would be perfect timing. Starting in September (the 21st is the first trial), there will be trials every couple of weeks for a while.

We started the run nicely, but unfortunately Cody dropped a bar. Reviewing the video later, I don’t think that I did anything wrong – it was just one of those things, perhaps related to the higher height that Cody is required to jump. It was disappointing as we will need to continue running Level 1 for at least the next couple of trials.

As I watched the Level 2 competitors run the difficult courses, with once again, many of them eliminated due to off courses, I realized that the extra time to prepare to advance to Level 2 might not be such a bad thing!

I stayed until mid-afternoon and then decided to wind my way back to Tokyo on my own. Driving at my own pace I took the opportunity to admire the scenery and managed to snap a couple of photos with my point and shoot camera. The rest of the trip went smoothly, thank goodness!

Trial Site

View from Trial Site

View along the highway - a bit blurry!