Big Week-end at TCOTC agility trial, Mellie brings MACH cake

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.