At the TCOTC agiity trial November 20-22, the Alasera Gang had one of their best showings and we also celebrated Mellie’s MACH title by bringing a full size sheet cake (yummy almond-flavored white cake with raspberry filling!) and having her MACH bar signed by fellow agility exhibitors.

Abby remained home with her puppies, but Ace, Ripley and Mellie took high honors showing off their skills.

Ripley finally earned both his Novice Standard and Open Jumpers with Weaves titles. He also placed first in both of those runs. He moved up to Exc. A. Jumpers and managed to qualify in that first run to boot-with another first place finish. Ripley showed remarkable composure and focus and speed after some not so noteworthy runs a few weeks ago. There is hope for him yet!!!

Ace had some great Jumpers runs, earning three more legs towards his MXJ title. All good and speedy, he even wracked up 19 MACH points and had two third place finishes and a fourth place in a competitive 8″ class. He had some stress and issues with contacts for his Standard runs, so we will need to fix those before he can advance further there. He did have some great moments in those runs, despite the contacts, and showed good enthusiasm.

Mellie had a breakout week-end. With a MACH under her belt, trial stress for her and her handler has dissipated to almost nothing. She had amazing times, and her only mistake in 6 runs over three days, was one dropped bar. Which is a rarity anyway, so we didn’t worry too much. She earned two Double Q’s, 124 MACH points (a record!), and had FOUR first place finishes and one second place finish. (Lots of multiplier points!) She looked so good, and she beat some very, very fast top dogs. With these points, she managed to qualify for the AKC National agility trial for the second year in a row. We won’t likely be headed to Tulsa, OK in March of 2010, but it is nice to know she earned the right to go. Mellie may be at MACH 2 before you know it!!

All in all it was a long, but very productive week-end. Next agility trial is in mid-January, so lots of time to rest up and fine-tune the performance.

On November 6th, Mellie, Ace and Ripley were entered in the St. Paul Dog Training Club agility trial. They all had moments of brilliance, but only Mellie turned that into qualifying runs. She earned another Double Q and 29 MACH points with definite improvement in her start line speed. The 8″ height class has become quite competitive and there are many dogs to defeat which makes getting the “multiplier” for MACH points rather dificult. She earned a fifth place finish in her Standard run and a third place finish in her Jumpers run.

Ace had two very nice runs with only minor problems with his weaves and a few other miscellaneous issues. Best of all, he ran fast, happy and enthusiastic even after spending 7 hours in a crate before his first run. We are hopeful he will start qualifying again soon. He is competing in the Excellent level of both Standard and Jumpers with Weaves, so there are definitely more challenges for him now.

Ripley, still showing in Novice Standard and Open Jumpers with Weaves, demonstrated the frustrations of working with a more “unfocused” and inexperienced individual. In the Jumpers run, he had the “zoomies”, running at top speed in circles around the equipment and ring before finally joining me to finish the course. He had a fantastic. focused and fast finish, but of course, we had lost the ability to qualify by that point. He had great weaves which is very important at this level. His Standard run was actually very accurate, with a mistake of stepping on the broad jump, but he lacked speed completely. No zoomies, no zest. So, I think he needs to learn the ropes a bit more before he will be successful.