Tuesday, August 23, 2011

American K9 Country CPE Trial, August 19-20, 2011

This weekend Spot and I went to a CPE trial at American K9 Country in Amherst, NH. The judge was Denielle Stasa.

I like this venue pretty well. It is indoors with padded footing, the equipment is nice, and there is a good amount of room. I can't really trial Shelby there though because the way the ring is, there isn't room to set up a gate chute, so I wouldn't risk it at this point.

Spot was entered in Snooker 4, Jumpers 4, and Fullhouse 4 on Friday, and Snooker 4, Fullhouse 4, Jackpot 4, Standard 2 and Wildcard 3 on Saturday. We ended up scratching Standard 2 and Fullhouse on Sat.

Friday started out with Jumpers. Spot was very energetic and did some extra running which resulted in 2 off courses, then he skipped the tire, but we just kept going since I knew we weren't going to Q anyway. Next was Snooker 4. This course didn't have any weaves, which was awesome for us, however the A frame was the 7 and while I could have gone for it, Spot has some issues with the A frame now that he is 13 years old, so I decided not to risk it. I had a plan the just included the A frame once. I guess Spot didn't like the plan, because he first went to the table in the middle of the run, then I got him back, but he left the ring...see the video.



I didn't have super high hopes for Fullhouse at this point, but we continued on. I made a plan that was a lot of tunnels and jumps and the A frame one time. I was going pretty well until the end, when Spot was on the A frame. He was near the top and I was ahead of him and he tried to go too fast off the A frame and took a tumble, rolling over on the floor. He got right back up, and we did a tunnel and a jump and finished the course. I checked him over, and he didn't seem sore, so I figured I would just keep a better eye on his A frame performance on Saturday.

Saturday I brought Shelby with us for the day, even though she wasn't running. It was a hot day and I set up my tent outside rather than inside because the crate room was open only to competing dogs. Saturday started with Snooker. This was a tough course for us because the weaves were #4, so I had to figure out how to get enough points, yet not do the A frame multiple times. I decided to run a course that would get us enough points if we could finish the poles, and we did, so we got a Q. Spot did the A frame with no problem, so I figured we were good.

Wildcard 3 was next. It was a very do-able course. The first choice was the A frame or a tunnel, and I was going for the A frame. Spot ran around it, and then didn't want to retry it, so I had to do the tunnel. We kept going but used a lot of time at the poles. Then on the up part of the dogwalk, Spot was very tentative, and I'm not sure why. The buzzer rang while we were on the dogwalk so we ran out of time on that one.

Jackpot was next. Again, a very do-able course. I planned to do all jumps and tunnels, no contacts. Spot got set up and we started, but his heart wasn't in it. He was running so slow. It was more like walking. We ran out of time halfway through the gamble, so no Q there. Then I decided to make it a day and we scratched Standard and Fullhouse.

Looking back, I'm still not sure if he was just tired, if he was sore, if he could tell I was in pain from my back...but he seems to be acting normally now, jumping on the furniture, etc. We have a trial this weekend where I am running Shelby in everything and Spot in 2 classes per day, so we'll see how he is there. It would really be too bad if Spot's agility career were over...especially with Nationals in New York next year.

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