Abby earns four titles at USDAA trial and Mellie gets a Super Q!
Team Alasera attended the USDAA trial in Burnsville on June 19 and 20th. Only Mellie, Abby and Ace were entered. Ripley needs more speed before he can compete in this venue.
Abby showed minimal to no trial stress this week-end and it translated into dynamite runs and four titles. She was fast, accurate and best of all, she was having fun. She qualified in 7 out of her 8 runs in the Performance Class and she earned all first place finishes. Quite a comeback after some real breakdowns in AKC trials. She earned her Performance I Snooker, Jumpers and Standard titles. With those qualifying runs, she also earned her first versatility title in USDAA-the Performance Dog I title. She can move up to the Advanced level now and we’ll see how she does there. Best of all, she did the teeter in public!
Mellie had a grand time in USDAA as well. She had to jump 12″ jump heights to be in the Championship Class, when normally she only jumps 8″ in AKC. This is a bit more effort for her, but she did very well, not dropping a bar all week-end. She was entered in 9 runs for the week-end and ran clean in all of them. She qualified in 8 of the runs, just missing her Masters Standard qualifying ribbon by a few seconds over time. She qualified in both of the tournament runs, earning a second place finish in both as well. In her second Snooker run of the week-end, she put on a great performance earning all possible points except one. That was enough to earn her a Super Q, which is a qualifying run in the top 15% of the height class. This was even more special, because her height class was combined with the 16″ class to determine the super Q’s. She needs 3 Super Q’s as part of her ADCH title (Agility Dog Championship) which is USDAA’s championship title. Only two more to go. She was really running and jumping like a true pro and I couldn’t be more proud of her progress this past year.
Ace struggled with trial stress this week-end and unfortunately only had one qualifying run. He did qualify in one of his Snookers run even though he refused the last obstacle which was the dreaded teeter. He had a nice jumpers run that would have been a qualifying run but for the moment after a tunnel that he caught the judge out of the corner of his eye and decided to turn around and bark at her before continuing on. Unfortunately, he back-jumped a jump during the brief interruption and caused an off course. He was super speedy and gave Terry something to work with as they go back to working on a few foundation skills and more motivation. I’m sure with time and patience, they will prevail.
