Posted on by chiakiito

Moore County KC Sanford, NC October 26-27, 2019

We attended the Moore County Kennel Club’s trial this weekend at Bon-Clyde Learning Center https://www.bon-clyde.com in Sanford, NC. If anyone is interested in dog training, this facility in Sanford is a great place to train!

I was really proud of Ann’s performance this weekend! We got a Q in Time 2 Beat (first place) and a Q in Novice Jumpers (first place) on Saturday, October 26. Then, on Sunday, October 27, we got a Q in Time 2 Beat (second place) and a Q in Novice Jumpers (second place). So, because this was our 3rd Q in Novice Jumpers (under 2 different judges), we got our Novice Jumpers title! Yahoo! Now we are in the Open Standard and Open Jumpers classes. We ran Open Standard both days this weekend and didn’t Q. My takeaway from this weekend is that I would like to work on consistency, focus, accuracy, confidence, teeter, threadles, serpentines, and accuracy when running full blast.

I’m learning a lot from the people at the trials and especially my teachers and friends from the Azalea Dog Training Club. I have to give a big shout out to Barbara Bray, who has been doing agility since the 1990s and runs 3 dogs in these trials, which is amazing. I can’t imagine juggling 3 dogs through these trials. Barbara is an inspiration and an awesome teacher and encourages Ann and me to reach for the stars. I have to also thank Judith Hawk and Joanne Brubach for their constant encouragement and assistance and nuggets of wisdom. I need to give a shout out to Dave Moore and Victor Pearsall for encouraging us from the sidelines! Finally, I also want to give a shoutout and congratulate my training buddy, Eric Wilson, who works really hard with his 11-year-old Cocker Spaniel. He got his Open title this weekend and now is in the Excellent class. So proud of him!

So back to Ann. As a re-cap, this is our 5th trial ever. It is our 4th AKC trial. We did a USDAA trial last weekend. Anyway, we got out of the Novice class in 4 trials. We are making progress. I have no idea what to compare that to and if that’s good or not. We are running Premier Standard and Premier Jumpers classes and people tell me that Ann is doing great in those classes, although we haven’t gotten a Q yet because she always wants to miss 1 obstacle per run. Oh well. We’ll get there.

I’ll post the videos I have. I don’t think I got a video of our title Novice Jumpers run but that’s the way it goes sometimes. The rest is here including the one where I fell down. Yay.

Time 2 Beat Saturday, October 26, 2019. We got a Q and first place too! Yay!
Open Standard Sanford October 26, 2019. This is where I fell down but I got back up and kept running because I wasn’t about to waste a run. Falling on turf is no joke. I’m watching Sunday Night Football right now and I just can’t imagine falling on that stuff ALL THE TIME. Anyway, of course we didn’t Q on this run but we probably could have if I hadn’t messed it up. Handler error. Ugh.
This is the Premier JWW run from October 26, 2019. It’s a super hard, technical course. The rules used to be that you had to be in the Excellent class before you could sign up for Premier courses, but AKC changed that so anyone can sign up to do it. Since I like a challenge, I sign up. I think Ann did ok on this course, considering at this point we were still in the Novice JWW class!
Even though we had a couple of mistakes, we got a Q on this Novice JWW run. Whew.
Time 2 Beat on Sunday. We got a Q and second place! There are no refusals in Time 2 Beat, so that’s why we can keep getting Qs.
We messed this up too. We’ll work on it and come back better next time! Premier Standard run from Sunday.
Last run of the day. It was late. We were tired. It’s really hard to stay focused for that long and when you’re in the Open and Novice classes, they put you at the end of the day, which is super hard. But I guess it’s like an initiation process. Something you just have to get through.