Salt City Cluster

Two weekends ago the dogs and I went to three days of agility trials at the New York State Fair grounds. We had a great time and did pretty well!

Flash was WIRED and on the first day was out of control even for her (at 12 years of age she still burns up the course and screams and quivers at the startline). We didn't pull off any qualifying runs, but had some really nice runs, especially in Excellent Jumpers with Weaves. In Excellent FAST, which has a distance challenge where your dog has to work a certain distance away from you (it is marked on the ground with tape), she had two "almosts." The first day she ran back over the line and was going fast enough to make it move, which caused the judge to think I stepped over the line. Oh well. On the third day *I* pulled her off a jump - with fast dogs the slightest motion can change everything!

Tia had a dynamite weekend. She was undertime in all of her runs, which is saying something for Tia. She qualified twice in Excellent Jumpers, which means she now has three MJP legs (she needs 10), and also finished her AXP in Excellent Standard. This means that she is now going for her PAX, which is the agility champion title for dogs running in preferred (this enables them to jump 4" lower than their actual height). I'm not planning to seriously pursue it, but we'll keep trialing and if it happens, it happens. For the PAX she will need 20 double Q's, which means she has to qualify in both Jumpers and Standard on the same day, 20 times. The photo is of her a couple summers ago, taken by Mike Weir.

Like Flash, Queezle started off the weekend a bit out of hand. In Open Standard the first day she tried to make it a longjump competition, taking off up to 10 feet before the jumps. It didn't work. Over the next two days she calmed down, and we had some decent runs. On Sunday she came through and qualified in Excellent Jumpers to finish her AXJ! She ahd me a little nervous, as there was a big loop around the outside of the ring where she started to take off early, but she corrected herself and kept all of the bars up.

All in all it was a good weekend!