SPDTC agility trial results

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.