A Work in Progress

No Qs today, thus the title of this post. But I didn’t come away discouraged because the courses were very difficult. Instead, I came away with a training plan.

Before I go any further, let me back up and set the scene. It was a beautiful day, a respite from many rainy days last week and additional rain anticipated for the upcoming week. The temperature was in the high 70s, a welcome relief from the high 80s we had last week. I arrived at the trial early, wondering if I should have slept in a bit longer as the Level 3 courses are always at the end of the day. I am so glad that I did, as there were 3 rings and one ring was running the Level 3 jumpers first thing.

The trial started with a few minutes of calisthenics – I remembered this from last year and was ready to join in. I was amazed that there was very little direction and yet everyone seemed in step, except for me! That was when a friend told me that Japanese children do the same set of exercises starting in grade school. I tried to keep up as best as I could, figuring that some exercise and stretching is better than none.

Now for the courses – the judge for both the Level 3 jumpers and standard runs was the one that Cody and I had run under at the big FCI competition at the end of May. It was our introductory run competing at Level 3. He is known as a judge who designs difficult courses, and today was no exception. Out of 45 dogs in the Large class, only two in jumpers and two in standard had clean runs.

While I found the courses to be challenging, they were fair, but there was no room for error. They were a true test of handling ability and teamwork with the dog. Cody was the second dog in the running order, so we weren’t able to learn from the errors of others, but it did give me the opportunity to watch most of the other dogs in the class run. Those that qualified deserved to do so, with not a step out of place.

On the jumper’s run, I felt that there was no option other than using a blind cross on a straight line of jumps. I lost Cody after I did the cross, and while I did get him back in time for the next jump, it put me behind for the following jump and Cody flew into a beckoning off course tunnel. So, my training plan is to work on blind cross skills.

I was pleased that we made it through the standard course without being whistled off. Cody dropped a bar, which is rare for him, but it was my fault – I was worried that he would suck into another tunnel, and I called too hard. At the end of the run he popped the A-frame contact (again, preventable had I worked it – I was just happy that we made it to the end of the course).

Because so many teams had problems on the course, after the runs were completed, the judge kindly allowed anyone who wanted to run again off the record to do so for a payment of about $10. The line was very long!

Since no course maps are distributed, I have drawn the standard course from memory, just to give an idea of the challenges the handler-dog teams faced:

Level 3 Standard Course

The main problem areas were the off course jump 20 after the second jump, tunnel 8 was taken by many dogs after jump 4 and jump 5, and finally the weavepole entry proved to be a challenge for many teams.

Our next trial is in two weeks, October 10th, when we will give another try at Level 3 courses. I can’t wait!

Advertisement