Trial #4

Sunday night Kevin, Dave, Les and I headed down to Cary/Raleigh, NC for our fourth agility trial. It was a three day trial but we decided to only compete on Monday. After the fiasco that was Day 2 at our last trial (too long to explain), we decided against a second (or third!) day. Les was signed up for her usual Standard, Jumpers and Snooker events as well as a Pairs course (first time without Dave!) and for the first time a Gamblers course. Dave did Standard, Jumpers and Snooker.

First up Snooker. Dave ran first, she wasn't too distracted so we managed to score 18 points but we didn't finish the closing so no qualification for us. She did finish 4th in the class, one place away from a ribbon! Les did well, scoring 45 points, but another team scored 46 points and a second team was slightly faster than Kevin and Les so she ended up in third. But she qualified and it was her third qualification, so she titled!

Les is now a Performance I Snooker dog! This means that she'll move up to Performance II Snooker courses in future trials. The courses will be a little more difficult and the time will be a little shorter for her to do it in.

Next up was Gamblers. This was a Les only event. Kevin and Les did well in the opening (and Kevin learned how long 25 seconds really isn't) but couldn't finish the gamble in the time allowed so while she was able to score 13 points, it wasn't enough to qualify or place.

Then we had Standard. Dave was the second dog to run and she did really well! She had a bit of a problem laying down on the "table" but her weave entry was really good and she did all 12 of them first time through! We finished strong but she was 3.08 seconds too slow so no qualification. She did place third though. Les went a little later and also had a good run. A little hiccup at the weave poles though but luckily she finished well in time and so she qualified again! This is her second qualification. Only one more to title!

Pairs was the fourth event of the day. We decided to retire Dave from Pairs competition because we thought it was taking too much out of her to do so many events. So Les paired up with a cute Chinese Crested dog we met at the trial. Les was first up and for some reason jumped off the teeter before it had hit the ground so she was marked off for that. The other dog ran well too, but since this course is scored by time + faults, they were over the qualification mark. They did come in first though! Of course that's because they were the only dogs in the class.

The last event of the day was Jumpers. Since Dave and Les were the only dogs in their class we thought for sure that we had locked up first and second. However half way through the course Dave got the zoomies and ran out of the ring. Luckily she stopped quickly and we were able to get her back on her leash. Next was Les. She ran it perfectly (could have been a little faster though) and so she qualified! Her third one too! So she's now a Performance I Jumpers dog!

Kevin is trying to figure out how to officially change her name to Les, PKI, PJI. We had to wait around half an hour after her run so that we could collect her ribbon and certificate, thus the empty arena behind her.