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Monday, April 12, 2010

2010 April GCOC Trial Recap

Our first AKC trial was quite a success! April 1st marked the first date where AKC clubs could allow mixed breed dogs to compete in agility, obedience and rally. The Greater Columbia Obedience Club (GCOC) opened the doors to mixed breeds with welcoming grace in their April 9-11 trial.

Kristen and I were so grateful to have so many friends at the trial with us to mentor us in our first AKC event. As we anticipated, Harley did very well, and showed people exactly what mixed breeds can accomplish!

Harley had 3 runs on Saturday - Novice Standard, Novice JWW (Jumpers With Weaves), and Novice FAST (Fifteen and Send Timed).

Kristen took Harley on the Standard run. The run was looking beautiful until we realized our oversight coming into the trial: The table. In USDAA, the pause table is always, always, ALWAYS a down. The judge's count does not start until the dog is completely down. In AKC, the judge announces during the briefing whether the table will be a Sit or a Down. Unfortunately for us, we've trained Harley to do an automatic down when she gets on the table. This by itself is not bad, however we never worked with Harley to getting her up into a sit from a down. When Kristen tried to get her into a sit, Harley jumped up on her 3 times, earning a disqualification (Harley thought Kristen was telling her to give hugs!). The rest of the run was flawless!

James handled Harley's JWW run. Harley charged mercilessly through the course like she had something to prove. It was a perfect clean run, besting the course in 20 seconds. It would be a 2nd place finish with our first AKC Q!

For Harley's FAST run, Kristen got some much-needed counseling from our friends Laura and Christine on the rules. FAST is all about racking up points. Each obstacle has an assigned point value on the course, and there's a "bonus" combo where the dog has to take the obstacles at a distance (5-7 feet in Novice). You have a set amount of time to obtain the required points. In her run, we had 32 seconds to amass 50 points. A buzzer sounds at the end of time, and if you have not gone over the end obstacle, you get negative 1 point for each second you spend getting to the end jump. Kristen and Harley put up an impressive 77 points in 28 seconds! Harley again placed 2nd, missing first by 1 point!

Sunday was just 2 runs: Standard and JWW. Kristen and I traded off and she took Jumpers and I took Standard. Jumpers was first in the day, but didn't turn out to be all sunshine. A small handler miscalculation took Harley off-course, and the rest of the course was history. We were both bummed, but in the end, we're here to have fun!

After waiting all day, we finally had the chance to redeem ourselves. Remembering the table incident the previous day, we had been working with Harley all day training her to come up to a sit from a down. While not 100%, she was very close to having it down pat. We flew through the course and reached the table halfway through. Sure enough, she did her automatic down on the table and the moment of truth arrived: I said "Up" with a hand signal, and sure enough, Harley went immediately into a sit! We finished off the run with no faults, earning us 2nd place and Q!

So you might be thinking to yourself, if she did so well, why is she always coming in 2nd? There's a perfectly good answer to that, one that we are not ashamed of. Anna Eifert and her dog Nevian were in town to give a seminar. They decided to enter the trial, and since they don't usually compete in AKC, they had to start in Novice. As you can see in this video, Nevian, the dog who placed 1st to our 2nd each time, is quite the accomplished dog. We were humbled just to be competing with a world-class level dog and it showed us how special Harley is by being closely competitive with them!

So that was our first AKC trial! As you can see below, there was a good turn out of mixed breeds, and AKC gave us a commemorative ribbon to mark the event.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Our First AKC Trial: Columbia GCOC

We're heading down to Columbia this weekend for the Greater Columbia Obedience Club's AKC agility trial! This is an important milestone as it marks our first trial in AKC with our mixed-breed star, Harley!

It will definitely be a little weird being back in Novice level. For those of you who are unfamiliar, each organization has its own titles. Harley competes in PIII level (the highest Performance level) in USDAA. However, since she has not competed in AKC, we have to start at the bottom and work ourselves up. Most organizations will not let you enter a higher level even if you have achieved a similar level in another organization until you fulfill their title requirements. Main reason is that each organization has slightly different rules, judges, and regulations that might not be completely compatible with their own titling requirements and standards.

Expect updates on our facebook page throughout the weekend.

So it's Novice-A for us! Look out, AKC. Here we come!