Have to love it that mum moved Mother’s Day in our family yesterday so we could go to an agility trial at the Hawkesbury Agriculture Show.
It was a bit special for us. The Hawkesbury Ag Show last year was our 1st ever agility trial. This was the chance to celebrate how far we have come. Mum still remembers the Novice Jumping run (our 1st run of the day) from last year where nerves had both of us all over the course. Mum struggled to remember where to go in the Open courses back then (she has got a bit better at remembering the courses). But hey we came good in Novice Agility… We got a quallie… The only Novice Agility one we have… Still.
So enough reminiscing you say… How did weep today I hear you ask…
Well let’s just say… I did all the hard stuff really well…
Kicked off with Open Agility. I started with a BANG! Yep. Took on the tyre when I started. Didn’t like that much. Made a horrible yelp as it scared me (thankfully no physical damage to either me or the tyre). But then we got it back together. Did the exclusion of the A-frame, tunnel and jump. Ahhh then kinda messed up the tunnel and weaves (which we have been practicing all week with the weave poles set up in the backyard) and well after that it wasn’t too bad. Here is a video of the run.
Next up was Excellent Jumping. We still haven’t cracked our 1st JDX quallie but gheez we are having some good cracks at it. Today was no exception. An awesome run except for a refusal into the final tunnel and then a dropped bar on the spread at the end. So super quick and a really nice run. Here is our video of the JDX run. This was our run of the day (so if you are looking for awesome clean runs you can stop reading here… but hey that is no fun)
JDO was our next run. Did I mention that we have been doing lots of weave practice this week. We have had the weave poles up in the backyard and mum and I were been popping down there in little breaks while she was working this week to do little practice. Yeah the video of our JDO run shows my awesome work…. And then after a light mix up at the tunnel (I was using some independent thinking) we DID IT. Yep I did the distance work!!! Did I mention… I did the distance work!!! And then I we did an awesome reverse spin that we have been learning with the One Mind Dogs stuff.
And that brings us to our 4th and last run for the day. Good news…. I didn’t take out the 1st jump… and it was the spread (woohoo!) but I did decide to head over to the chute tunnel (a lot of others headed for the A-frame so I was just mixing things up). Some nice weaving (finally says mum) but I think her real highlight was the table. I had the jumps… yep jumping on and off the table. Thankfully mum was laughing at this point. If you want to laugh too here is our AD video.
So that is the wrap up of our day at the Hawkesbury Ag Show Agility Trial. While no quallies or places we had an awesome day. We have used the line before… “it doesn’t have to be perfect to be great” and there were moments today that were like this. But the bit that really mattered… is today showed how much we have learnt over the past year as our little agility team and also the fantastic people and dogs that we have been lucky to meet and have come on the journey with us (including you readers of 1st World Dog… but if you do need to catch up here is My Agility Story). A big 1st World Dog Paws Up to everyone who has helped us on our journey so far and hope either through training tips, training buddies or supporters at the trials or here online you continue to learn with us. Thanks!
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