At the St. Paul Dog Training Club on April 5th, the whole Alasera gang competed in the agility trial. First up was Mellie, Ace and Abby in the Excellent level Jumpers with Weaves. Mellie was the only qualifier of the three and managed a fourth place finish and 10 more MACH points. Abby did very, very well, but popped out of her weaves. Ace had a nice strong run, but made just a few errors.

Next up was Mellie in the Standard run. She performed flawlessly and managed to qualify and just missed out on another fourth place finish. She earned another 10 MACH points with that run. And it was another Double Q!

Abby had her Open Standard run next and lo and behold, she actually did the teeter. This was a minor miracle. Of course, she did refuse it once before actually doing it, but that was a break through. She only had to do the table, A-frame and a jump to get her Open Standard title, and she refused the A-frame. It was though she said, “mom, I did the teeter, what more do you WANT??” I was thrilled she had as good a run as she did. We are making progress.

Ace had a few problems in his Novice Standard run, refusing the teeter and A-frame, but otherwise, doing pretty darn well. So, no qualifying runs for Ace today.

Ripley made his debut in his first ever agility trial. His first run was the Standard course and it was….interesting and entertaining. He got off to a good start with a jump, tire and dogwalk and it pretty much went downhill from there. Missed tunnel entrances, jump refusals, back jump over the broad jump, more missed jumps, a teeter refusal, left the table early, visited the jump setter, jumped on the judge….yes, we had it all. I excused him at that point and we ran off the course where he thought that was just nifty. He looked like he was having fun, just not the fun I was hoping for.

I dreaded going into the Novice JWW ring with him, figuring he wasn’t quite ready for prime time, but thought I had better “get it over with”. At the start line, he looked like he was ready to leave the ring and go visiting. But he decided to try the first jump. After that, we kept moving from jump to jump, giving him no time to “think about it”. He went around one jump, earning a refusal (which in Novice, you can have one or two of those), and I got him to come back and perform it correctly. Finally, one miracle. Then, it was on to another jump and tunnel. As he came out of the tunnel, he saw only open space and the audience, I was way over waiting for him near the next jump. I was sure he was going to go off on a spree. I had to call him and he came running. Miracle number two. Then, it was another two jumps and a tunnel. So far so good. Finally, the big finale was weaves and two jumps. He did it!!! We actually earned a qualifying leg and first place!!! We barely made course time, but with all the meandering, I am amazed we even made course time. A great way to end the day!!