And A Good Time Was Had By All

Well the trial at Wagga Wagga has come and gone but will long remain in my memory as one of my favourite ones ever ........ why did she wait so long to trial interstate she asks ?

Such a relaxed atmosphere with only two rings running - you can see how dry it was from the photos but still OK to run on.

I loved everything about the weekend - friendly club members and other participants, great courses (mostly) and a dog who was happy and relaxed and couldn't wait to work - what's not to love? Plus the passes in Masters and Open agility helped too !

I was happy with all our runs (apart from a blonde moment on the Open Jumping course which we won't talk about) .......... and with our speed on most sections of each course. We are positively slow compared to some of the dogs there though - Open Agility we ran (what I thought was) a really good speed, 21 seconds under SCT and we still only came in 7th! We were 8th in Masters agility, but I did have a little 'bobble' on one discrimination where sloppy handling caused him to ask a question, so I know I lost a bit of time there.

Anyway, a great weekend, and I really enjoyed watching some different dogs run. Plus I learnt quite a bit from watching different handlers, especially relating to my position and motion around the course. I will be marking this trial on my calendar each year now.

Here's Atilla with his quallie sashes. One thing I had never seen before was that no sashes were awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd (just prizes) - but everyone got the same sash for qualifiying no matter what position they came in.

I have a list of things I want to work on over the next few months, plus a few more 'holes' after last weekend's trial at Bendigo, so once I get my list (and related thoughts) together I will publish my training plan. I majored in 'course forgetting' at Bendigo so I have decided that once I get the last pass I need for ADO I will just run Masters for a bit to avoid clashes - JDO can wait.

Cruz ran his first full length course at training last week (one of Murray's old novice agility courses) and went clear both times which was encouraging. There are still some areas I want to work on with him before I put him in his first trial, but overall I am really happy with his progress and am in no hurry.