Agility Beagles: October 2008

We had 3 shows/trials during the while I've been MIA... :) Not having very good results, but here's a short summary of what went down over the last couple of weeks...

We had an Open Show on 11 October on our grounds where Emma normally finds the bird poo more interesting than the agility obstacles... however, she was the only dog to not get disqualified in the Contact round, so got a first place there, albeit with two missed contacts! :-o She had a refusal, turning back in front of a tunnel to visit some bird-poo, as well as a knocked bar in her Non-Contact round, but still coming 2nd there. Levi had two DQ's on this day, very naugthy running off in the first round, but at least working in the second, although we made a mistake.

Next show was a Club Trial on 18 October in 30 degree Stellenbosch heat, and Levi having to jump 55cm as SADAA falls under IFCS not FCI. He however made me very proud by getting his last qualification in Agility 2, winning the midi group and moving up to Grade 3. In Jumping he also managed a clear round, but unfortunately only getting a 3rd place due to having to run against much taller BCs. Little Em ran clear in Agility, but in the Jumping round she refused a tunnel as the dog before her peed insided it and the blistering heat made the tunnel fumes too much for her! LOL! They washed it out and was allowed a re-run, but by that time she was so tired from having to almost run it for the 3rd time, she just said, why on earth do you want me to do this AGAIN, no no way! :) Of course I couldn't blame her. Was just disappointing at the time, but quite funny afterwards.

On Friday 24 October, we had a Championship, top grade only show. It was lovely and cool by the time evening arrived as we had a very hot day of flyball behind us. Levi caught me SO off guard by taking off like a rocket, that I was just too far behind him from the word GO to even think of catching up... we managed about 8 obstacles when he took the wrong jump after the dogwalk and we DQ'd. ALL the other mediums had faults, and Emma ran last, just having to run clear within time to win the coveted QC. The time was set quite high, and the only dog having gone clear, and more or less same speed as Emma normally, had 1 time fault, so off we went, all out! Being evening cool weather, Emma was MOVING and unfortunately so much that we missed the dogwalk contact, so thereafter we pushed for time even more, as we had nothing to lose. She then missed the A-frame contact as well, but ran the fastest time of the day and still came 2nd. Not too bad under the circumstances. :) In the Non-Contact, a very complicated course, I made a bad error with Levi, resulting in another DQ. I also took my eyes off Emma for a second and we also DQ'd. Well, it was fun nonetheless and we just WISH we could have more evening trials in summer, it was LOVELY, especially for the Beagles, working much faster than at any other time in the day. Anyway, I guess we can only dream...

The 26th came and we had another Club Trial... not one to speak much about... thorns made both my Beagles refuse to run the Jumping run, after which the ring was moved to another field. I made a handling error with Levi, resulting in a DQ and Emma again missed 2 contacts, but still managed a 1st place in that round.

So as you can see, not very good results over the last few weeks, lets hold thumbs this will change in the next few weeks. :)