The following weekend we headed out to scenic Wadsworth for an Agility Fun Match to benefit Illinois Doberman Rescue. It was held at Tracy's Farm. She has horses & cows and does boarding and grooming there. It's a gorgeous piece of property. I entered both River and Ruby for two runs each. I ran Ruby first and of course, she did very well but she's a pro. Just to show you how challenging Tracy's Farm is though, Ruby got a little distracted by the horses right next to the fence while she was on the DW & popped her weaves when she heard another dog bark. That's not like her.
River was up next, his first run he did fairly well, all things considered: Jump to DW and run over and bark at the horses for 5 seconds. Run back to mom do the tunnel, NAIL his weave entry and complete all twelve, to the tunnel and run past a jump to pee on the fence in the corner...oh my...baby dogs...sigh...get him back, two jumps, go bark at the horses again because they had the nerve to move to the other side of the ring. Get him back, jump, a-frame, jump, teeter, tire jump...must sniff ground in front of tire...do tire, do tunnel, run around a jump and do the last jump! Yea River! Then he pooped right after we left the ring...if he had done that BEFORE we ran maybe jumping would have been easier. Ugh!
Ruby's second run was perfect. She nailed the teeter and DW with a FAST 2o/2o. We had two very cute little girls about eight years old scoring all the dogs. They loved Ruby and said she was the most awesome dog and gave her a score of 5000. Adorable! =) Wish they were always our judges! LOL!
River was up next for his 2nd try. A little better, very nice jump to DW, only a short detour to bark at horses and right back to me when I called him. Into the tunnel and weaves, got the entry but kept popping at 4. The weaves were pretty light weight and not nailed down so they had moved a bit. I let him try twice and we moved on. Tunnel, three jumps to the Aframe and he was great! On to the jump, teeter, tire sequence and again some sniffing in front of the tire. Don't know if there was something there that was really interesting or if he was stressing over the tire itself. Finally got him to take it, tunnel, two jumps out and he was perfect. The girls gave him a score of 50. Not bad, eh? LOL!
So LOTS of positive things and some little things to work on. I do think that there was a lot of dog pee in the agility ring and for him to work for me in such a distracting environment is phenomenal for a thirteen month old puppy. We need a lot more work on his teeter and I'll add a stop to his DW but overall I think he's putting things together very nicely.
