Trial Recap: CPA AKC September 4-6 Charlotte

We had the pleasure of celebrating Labor Day weekend at Carolina Piedmont Agility's AKC trial in Charlotte. Since it was a holiday weekend and both Kristen and I had Monday off from work, we competed in all 3 days. Another milestone was we started Mo running 2 classes a day - we had been just doing 1 class a day just to see how he performed in a trial setting. He's been doing so well, we thought it was time to up his workload slightly.


The event was at the Charlotte Sports Center, the same site as CPA's July 4th trial. Greg, president of CPA, really listened to all the feedback, positive and otherwise, from the July trial and what resulted was a very smooth operation. Crating was much more spacious and organized, and the vendors easier to get to. The running surface was superb, as always. The sports center has artificial turf with embedded rubber pellets, giving excellent grip and cushion.


The weekend ended up being VERY productive for both Harley and Mo, and we had a great time hanging out with all our friends.


With all the runs in the weekend, I'll just go over the hightlights:


SATURDAY 9/4
Excellent A Standard - Harley - Harley had a great run on her first Excellent Standard course. She had earned her Open Standard title at the end of her last trial (Greensboro). Best way to start the day, with a 2nd place & Q! [video]

Open FAST - Harley - Harley continued her streak with another 2nd & Q in FAST. The send was a gracious jump-tunnel-jump combo in flow, which Harley nailed. [video]


Mo - Mo had some difficulty his first day. A wrong course in JWW, and some issues on the dog walk kept us Q-less. That's all part of being a novice dog though! Plenty of things to work on!


SUNDAY 9/5
Open FAST - Harley - Despite a hard send bonus (A-Frame-Jump-Jump), Harley nailed it, and finished up her last Open class with a 3rd place! All Excellent from now on! [video]


Excellent A JWW- Harley  - Harley was being a little slow on this course, which ended up being a very good thing. A very tight, twisty course led many of the faster dogs off course, or knocking bars. She still came well under time, and most importantly clean for the Q and a 1st place! [video]


Novice FAST- Mo - Mo had his favorite obstacle in the send bonus - the A-Frame - which made things pretty easy! He burned up the course, earning 72 points in 23 seconds(!) for a 1st place. [video]


MONDAY 9/6
Excellent A JWW- Harley - Harley was clean and accurate on her JWW run, earning a 2nd place & Q. [video]


Excellent A Standard- Harley - Harley traditionally has had trouble in Standard, but not this weekend! I think we're finally getting all the wrinkles out, and she's becoming more and more consistent. Harley blazed through the course for a 1st and Q! While it doesn't really count until we get into Excellent B, it was a double-q for the day in Standard and JWW! [video]


Novice JWW- Mo - Mo capped off his weekend with a stellar JWW run. He had one refusal (which, in my opinion, was a debatable call). Regardless, you get 2 refusals in novice, so it was still a Q! And a 1st place! [video]

A very successful weekend bounty!

With all that, Harley only has 1 more leg in Standard and JWW to earn her Excellent A title. Once that's completed, we can start working towards our Excellent B title and a MACH! A MACH title is very hard to accomplish - it requires 20 double q's and 750 MACH points. A dog earns MACH points by each second they are under the Standard Course Time (SCT) in Standard or JWW. We were very happy with Mo's performance, despite an odd fear of the dog walk in the Standard ring. It seemed to be something with that particular dog walk, since he did the one at DogHaven just fine Sunday night, and went over it backwards just fine on Monday. We're very happy with his progress so far, with 1 leg in each class!

Our next trial is October 3rd in Columbia, SC. See you all then!

Titling Progress: Harley
ExcA Standard (AX) - 2/3 legs 
ExcA JWW (AXJ) - 2/3 legs
Open FAST (XF) - 3/3 legs ** NEW TITLE


Titling Progress: Mo
Novice Standard (NA) - 1/3 legs
Novice JWW (NAJ) - 1/3 legs
Novice FAST (NF) - 1/3 legs

Trial Recap: CPA AKC August 22 in Greensboro

I just plain forgot about recapping our last trial, so this is going to be short since we have another trial coming up this weekend!

Briefly, Harley got 2 1st places, Qing in Standard and Jumpers to get her Open titles in both. Other than that, some handler mistakes NQ'd us from our other runs.
Harley's JWW Run
Harley's Standard Run

Mo had 2 great runs, but FAST was a little much for him (gotta work on those outs!), and he did an off course on the Standard run.

This weekend is Carolina Piedmont Agility's Charlotte trial. It's at the same location as the July 4th trial, which has a great surface (Charlotte Sports Center) . Wish us luck!


Titling Progress: Harley
Open Standard (OA) - 3/3 legs ** NEW TITLEOpen JWW (OAJ) - 3/3 legs ** NEW TITLE
Open FAST (OF) - 1/3 legs


Titling Progress: Mo
Novice Standard (NA) - 1/3 legs
Novice JWW (NAJ) - 0/3 legs
Novice FAST (NF) - 0/3 legs

Trial Recap: Carolina Piedmont Agility AKC Trial in Charlotte, NC

This past weekend was our first hometown trial in a loooong time. Carolina Piedmont Agility (CPA) hosted their AKC trial on July 4th weekend at the Charlotte Sports Center. We are more than happy to enter trials in July that are hosted indoors in A/C, especially if it is close to home! We've come to enjoy the trials that CPA hosts, as they are always well run and know what competitors expect out of a great trial site.

Many people came into the trial with reservations about the running surface. Indoor turf has not earned itself a great reputation in the agility community, especially in this area. I mainly attribute this to the turf surface at another local trial site that has drawn the ire of large dog owners due to the turf's lack of grip, resulting in dogs slipping. I, however, had no reservations about the Charlotte Sports Center turf - I play on it regularly in a soccer league! It's cleat-friendly and is infused with small tiny rubber pellets that A) give dogs a nice grip since their claws can really dig in for traction, and B) it has a nice "spring" to it so you don't feel like you're running on carpet over concrete.

Needless to say, we were excited about a local, indoor trial at a great facility. But that was only a small part of why we were excited: This would be the first trial for our youngest dog, Mo! Mo started training in late November at Dog Haven under Deb Knowles. We decided that we would try to enter him in this trial, as he turned 15 months old on July 1st (AKC regulations state that a dog must be older than 15 months to compete).

We also decided that we would only enter him in 2 classes, 1 each day. It's always an adventure when your dog goes to its first trial. You never know how they are going to react when they get into the ring for the first time. There are so many other things going on, it makes it very different from the controlled environment we have at our weekly classes. While Mo has been coming to trials with Harley for over a year now, we wanted to ease him into competition. Part of this was also entering him in "Preferred."  AKC Preferred classes allow a dog to run in a jump height below what they measure. Mo measures 21" at the withers, which would put him in the 20" height class. We're working him up to to 20 inches, but in the mean time we decided that running 16" Preferred would be best, and we can build up from there.

Without further ado, here are the results!

Saturday 7/3
Open JWW - Harley - Harley opened her weekend with a BEAUTIFUL run. She was fast, accurate, and clean, earning a 1st place & Q. [video]


Novice FAST - Harley - Oops. We forgot to move Harley up into Open after titling in the last trial...Oh well. We ran this just for fun and, it turns out, infamy. Our run was going very well, racking up 78 out of a possible 80 points. All that was left was the last jump which stops the timer. James was paying too much attention to directing Harley and not enough attention to where he was on the course that he put himself on a collision course with the final jump. Luckily it doesn't effect our run, as that jump is only used to stop the timer and has no bearing on whether or not you Q. Plus, Harley jumped the jump simultaneously to me knocking it down, so the time difference would've been negligible. We ended up in 2nd place (1st place tied with points, but had a faster time) and a Q. Be sure to check out the video!


Novice Standard - Harley - Same as above, we forgot to move her into Open. Regardless, Harley steamed through the course, earning a 1st  & Q!


Novice Standard - Mo - The big debut! Mo did extremely well for his first run at trial. He was un-phased by the change in environment and ran exactly how he would've in practice. He had beautiful downs on the contacts, and ran clean with no bars down. To our surprise, Mo ended up in 2nd place & Q, only 0.40 seconds behind 1st place! [video]



Sunday
Open Standard - Harley - AKC allows dogs to move up, so on Sunday we moved Harley up from Novice to where she was supposed to be: Open. Kristen had a nice clean run with Harley. Harley was a little slow on the table getting to a sit, but no faults led to a 2nd place & Q!


Open FAST - Harley - A difficult send bonus doomed this run (A-Frame - tunnel - A-Frame). Otherwise, the run was a success!


Open JWW - Harley - A nice start then led to an off-course. This particular course was VERY tight, and a lot of dogs and handlers were having problems with it.


Novice JWW - Mo - Mo had a small refusal on the 3rd jump (he just went around it), but James recomposed him and finished the rest of the course clean. Novice dogs get 2 refusals, so Mo Q'd and came in 3rd place! [video]

So all in all, a great success. We're very proud of Mo earning 2 Q's his first trial, and he showed us that he can handle the pressure of a trial environment very well. Harley was her usual consistent self, earning several Q ribbons. We are looking forward to CPA's next trial at the Sports Center.

I also want to say thanks to our parents for coming out to see us on Saturday, and a special thanks to Deb for all her hard work getting Mo (and us!) ready for his first trial.

Trial Recap: Fletcher AKC May 29th

Just a quick recap this time...work has kept Kristen and I very busy!

Leaving for Blue Ridge Agility Club's AKC trial in Fletcher, we had one main goal: Get 2 Q's in Standard for our Novice title. We really wanted Harley to be in all Open classes at our hometown trial in Charlotte on July 4th weekend, and this was our last chance.

Saturday
Novice Standard - James ran this one with Harley and had some scary close jumps. Harley nearly nicked the bar on the double and final jump. In typical Harley-jumping form, she tucks her back feet in and clears the bars when she jumps too early. Some of the jumps on this run were just a little too close for comfort. Nonetheless, she was clean, and we ended up placing first & Q! (youtube)

Open JWW - Kristen had some bad luck....Harley dropped the 2nd bar in the course. Apart from that, the run was beautiful and clean.

Novice FAST - James ran for an impressive 74 points with 7 seconds to spare. We came up 1 point short of first place, but walked away with a Q and our NF title! James was kicking himself since he had plenty of time to go pick up a couple more points for first, but it's the Q that counts. (youtube)

Sunday
Novice Standard - Kristen had a flawless run, earning a 1st & Q and Harley's final Novice title, NA! (youtube)


Open JWW - This run almost started with disaster. After a 2 jump lead out, James looked back and Harley was sniffing the ground and wouldn't respond to her release command! I walked back trying to get her attention, and suddenly as I neared the first jump, she started to go! Although it wasn't as smooth as planned, the run was clean, and Harley earned another 1st & Q.


Open FAST - Kristen showed superior planning, racking up 78 points for a 1st & Q in our first Open FAST run! This beat her previous personal best of 77 points, and continues our 100% Q-Rate in FAST. (youtube)


For convenience, I created a youtube playlist with our runs from the weekend. The lighting in the outdoor ring was too much for the camcorder to handle, so I only posted video from our indoor runs.

Titling Progress:
Novice Standard (NA) - 3/3 legs ** New Title!
Novice FAST (NF) - 3/3 legs ** New Title!
Open JWW (OAJ) - 1/3 legs
Open FAST (OF) - 1/3 legs

CDCA Pendleton Trial

Harley's 2nd AKC trial was a success! We were down at the Canaan Dog Club of America (CDCA) trial in Pendleton, SC. The trial site was wonderful - large indoor arena with ample crating space. Here's the breakdown:

Saturday:
Novice JWW: Harley flew through the course in an impressive 21.50 seconds for a 1st & Q.
Novice Standard: Harley blew her A-Frame contact on what would've been a qualifying run!
Novice FAST: Despite the judge and/or scribe miscalculating our score, we still managed a 1st & Q with 62 points (should've been 77).

Sunday
Novice JWW: Harley sailed through the course in 23.05 seconds for another 1st & Q. This was her 3rd Novice JWW leg, so we earned our first AKC title (NJ)!
Novice Standard: We continue our bad luck with Standard. Harley jumped the bottom contact of the dog walk, which was the 2nd to last obstacle. We already had a refusal, but that would've still been enough for a Q.

So all in all, pretty successful weekend. Our Standard runs were pretty frustrating, but we know what we have to work on. BRAC's AKC trial in Fletcher is in less than 3 weeks, so we'll prepare for that. With any luck, we'll pick up the last 2 Novice Standard legs there (fingers crossed) so we'll be in all Open classes for our hometown trial in July!

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.

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!

Major AKC & USDAA Announcements

Just about to leave for our trial in Raleigh and got some VERY good news!

1. USDAA just announced the venue for the 2010 Cynosport World Games. This year it will be held at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, KY October 13-17!

From USDAA:

We are pleased to announce that we have received a Letter of Commitment from the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville to host the Cynosport World Games on October 13 - 17, 2010.  Options are also being offered for 2011 and/or 2012.

The facility is home to the Kentucky State Fair and the Kentuckiana Cluster of Dog Shows and has ample RV and general parking, and includes both indoor and outdoor areas for competition and other use.  Much of the competition and the finals will be held in the Broadbent Arena on packed dirt and will be streamed live via the Internet. 

We are working diligently with the facility, local sports commission and hotels to secure room blocks at favorable rates.

The City of Louisville has undergone a great transformation as a destination of choice, and we are certain competitors and guests alike will enjoy their time in Louisville.

Further details will be annouced as they become available.

2. AKC just made a major announcement about changes to their Mixed Breed program!

• They have decided that Mixed Breeds may compete in any agility, rally, or obedience event. Initially, Mixed Breed classes were only available at events that were not also holding an all-breed event (Conformation).
• Mixed Breeds will now compete with their Purebreds friends instead of in a separately. 
• Mixed Breed titles shall be the same as their Purebred friends. There will NOT be separate titles for Mixed Breeds.

Both news items are very important, but I am especially happy about the AKC changes. I'm glad to see that they acted so quickly to feedback from the community, and, in my opinion, made changes for the better.

Keeping Track of Titles

When we started in agility, there was so many things we not only had to learn, but also to keep track of!

Titles are a big part of competing in agility. Most competitors will tell you how excited they were when they earned their first title with a dog.

For those of you who might not know much about agility (yet!), a "title" is a certification of sorts - It says that you have completed all the requirements set forth by an organization. After completing all the requirements, the dog is awarded the title. Usually titles have a 2-4 letter abbreviation. Dogs earning titles like USDAA's ADCh (and the Performance equivalent APD)  and AKC's "MACH" are highly regarded and respected in the agility community, as the road to earning those titles is long and hard. When a dog earns a title, it is proudly appended to that dogs name. For example, our dog Harley's full name is currently "Harley Davis PJ3 PK2 PR2 PG2 PS1 PD1."

While you're racking up the Q's, it does become hard to keep track of all that information, especially when you have more than one dog! Here are several recommendations:

• Agility Record Book is a free, open source software product that keeps track of pretty much anything you can think of with agility. It supports requirements from most agility organizations (USDAA, AKC, NADAC, CPE, etc) and helps organize your future trials as well.
• If software is not for you, then consider the old fashion way: Pen and Paper. Many trial vendors offer agility record keeping binders. They're relatively cheap, but not as cheap as free. You also have to be diligent about keeping track of your runs - it's easy to fall behind and lose track!
• Make a cheat sheet. I wrote my own spreadsheet that's printer-friendly so I can take it to trials and quickly mark off Q's I earn during the weekend. I made mine to be quick to update, and SIMPLE. Here's a link of my USDAA cheat sheet on google docs. It doesn't keep track of course times or placements, but it doesn't need to. It's just a quick cheat sheet, and to be usable, it needed to be simple. Note: I hastily converted the link above from an ODS file, so it's not as pretty on google docs as the original on my computer.
• As a reader added, some organizations have online portals to access your dog's information online. As far as I know, AKC and USDAA both offer this feature. USDAA charges a $20 subscription fee for 2 years of access. I gladly pay that much for access, and to support my organization of choice.

User Suggestions:

• From Elizabeth Z:
  

  I use the "Manage my Dogs" feature on www.akc.org and this way I can verify (after about a 3 week period following a trial) my dogs titles and Q's earned. I always check the site before I enter the next trial so I know for sure what we are striving for as far as titles go. I then have the green Q ribbons to know what we got for that particular trial.
  You can also follow your friends dogs too, who are registered with the AKC, with their online record keeper.
  I used to go by the ribbons on the wall. I would drape them in the orders recieved and then I could see when there was a new title ribbon or notice when a Q was needed. This got to be too long.....it circled my ceiling and soon needed another room! I had to box up the ribbon idea and look for something easier.

• Comments: I did the same thing when I started. Keeping track of so many ribbons is tedious, and not a very good record keeping practice.

If you have any suggestions on how you manage your dog's information, post a comment and I'll add it to be above list!

This Weekend: Fletcher

This weekend, we are headed off to one of our favorite places to trial: Fletcher, NC! The Blue Ridge Agility Club always knows how to put on a good trial, and we're hoping to continue the success we had at their trial last May (1st place in Performance Grand Prix that gave us our first round bye at SE Regionals, which lead to our qualifying for Nationals).

This will be the first time we've competed at the indoor arena at the Western NC Ag Center. Given the cold temperatures expected this weekend, it will certainly be nice to be indoors. Our trainer, Deb, will also be making the trip with her dog Ike, so we can bug her with our obsessive handling analyses instead of always bothering Susette. :-)

In other news: Carolina Piedmont Agility just announced some of their future trial dates for USDAA and AKC. In addition to the January USDAA trial in Raleigh, they will be hosting TWO AKC trials in Charlotte at the Charlotte Sports Center. Both trials are after April, when the new Mixed Breed classes can be offered, and it's been confirmed that they will be holding Mixed Breed classes. The Charlotte Sports Center is a great venue, and has a great indoor playing surface. I should know - I played indoor soccer there for many years in high school & college. It's great to see more trials in the popping up in the Charlotte area!

Wish us luck this weekend!