Abby's First Agility Trial

[Abby's mom]

wooo I haven't been on here in forever but Abby and I had our first trial this past saturday! We did a USDAA Intro trial and had an absloute blast.

It was a great learning experience for me and a good way to get her used to trials...

Firstly let me just say she did awesome in her crate. We had to crate all the dogs outdoors/out of our cars so I ended up hanging out with my friend and her family and we crated the dogs towards the back of the parking lot in a corner. When I'd first put her in she'd whine a bit(she only barked once), but I was able to walk away without an issue. So she was crated periodically throughout the day.

Oh and I actually got this dog to tug! Friday night I got her a new toy(Skinneeez stuffing free one) and I didn't let her play with it at all until we were at the trial. She was so into it it's crazy. We tugged for a good few minutes and I was even able to tug with her while we were in line waiting for our run. It's such a huge shocker. Since she's so in love with it maybe it'll be my secret weapon. For now she's only allowed to play with it when we're doing agility. That way she more willing to work for it. So we'll see how that goes. I'm going to break it out at class tonight and see if she's willing to work for it

We ended up only doing to runs(jumpers and standard)...Our first run was ok. When we first got out there she completed the first jump then saw a bunch of people and was just like "PEOPLEZ! HIYA" and then she got a bit zoomie and went to visit the judge and everyone else. She did her A-frame awesomely. The first go when she landed she kinda stumbled and stuff, but she kept going on her own I didn't cue her to the tunnel, but she went ahead so we kept going, but the second go I made sure to slow down and make sure she dismounted properly. Now for the table sigh... She jumped and slid off and went to go visit people then came back and jumped back on and refused to down.... So after I tried to get her in down I just gave up and attempted to finish the course. But yeah it was a huge fail because My handling epically SUCKS and I went off course, but it was Exhibition only so no big deal and it was a good learning experience for us.

Our jumpers run was a lot better. My parents showed up in time to watch our last run, but I made them stay clear of the building because if she saw them while we were in the ring it would've been over lol....But We actually completed the course no faults! But again she went around visiting everyone in sight. Then she saw my friend who was taping us and attempted to run out the ring to see her a few times. But it was the better of the two runs. And she was having a blast so whatever.

My handling needs work. Looking at the video I see a lot of mistakes that I can correct, but it's was my first trial so eventually I'll get the hang of it. Plus we haven't worked much on it at class at all(we've only done maybe a few seconds here and there) so my instructor said not to worry about it...

Anywhos pics and video time!

Sadly I only took one picture of the brat... She was having some downtime between runs in the crate


My friend and her dog shiloh getting ready to go in the ring!


My instructor running her spazz Riley

And a video I put together of our runs...
Abby's First Agility Trial! - YouTube

[deidra]

Sounds like fun! Good pics

[Milesmom]

It sounds like you had a great day! Congratulations!