So we ran at a mudfest of an agility trial last weekend. It rained Saturday but luckily I only entered Sunday and Monday! The mud definitely didn’t slow Enzo down much but it slowed me down a lot. In Sunday’s JWW, he was running great in the mud, stayed in the weaves when I left laterally but then I didn’t support a send enough and he came flying toward me. Oops on my part but I thought that jump would be more of a given.

Then the standard course was kind of interesting. The teeter was sticking in the mud when it hit and when that happened Enzo stuck the teeter too! Only a split second but still a definite pause. So that has me wondering if it’s the rebound on the teeter that makes him want to get off quickly or if he sees that as his release. The line after teeter didn’t go too well but I saved it. I must have put pressure on his line before he passed me by. He did lateral weaves again with no problem. I front crossed before the aframe just to make sure I could get ahead for the dogwalk but I almost didn’t make the front cross because I couldn’t run quickly in the mud. I think that might be why he was a little high on the aframe but he still got in. His dogwalk was awesome though and he did push out incredibly even though I didn’t quite get ahead of him for the push. Got the Q though and 1st place!

Monday, Jeff came along since we both had the holiday. JWW had some pretty tough lines and a lot of zig zag stuff. I did a double front cross in the beginning and that actually went pretty well. Then in the sequence after the weaves I did a front into a rear cross but he didn’t see my rear cross and we got a back jump. A lot of people ran ahead and serped or pushed off the jump before the one I got a backjump on but I didn’t really think I could get there with Enzo and it would be really ugly if I didn’t.

In standard, he had great contacts again but clipped a bar. After watching the video, I wasn’t real happy with how far to the right I ran before rear crossing the tunnel. I need to focus on setting his line early and then driving in a straight line. Then going through the box after the tunnel I didn’t set his line properly again and he ran for the back of the chute!

Video of both runs that Jeff took:

The overhead view of standard:

Had fun at the USDAA trial this weekend. First one that I’ve been to in quite a few months. I decided to run Enzo in Performance. Probably will from now on. I definitely have more fun running him at 16″ than 22″. Tooney also ran in one run each day. P3 Gamblers yesterday and P3 Jumpers today. She didn’t get the gamble which was near impossible but she ran clean in Jumpers! She’s a good girl and it’s fun to be running her again. No video so I’ll write a little play by play.

Enzo was really awesome all weekend. He missed his very first dogwalk of the weekend but it was a dogwalk going into nothing in gamblers which is a weak point. We turned around and did it again and he got it. He didn’t miss anymore contacts the rest of the weekend and we didn’t have any contact related handling faults. Woohoo! In P3 standard, he knocked the first bar and fell off the table but other than that he did great. He even had to turn up the dogwalk from the tunnel underneath and still got he contact. I recalled him up the dogwalk instead of babysitting the entrance and that let me run up and did a front cross at the end. Glad I practiced that at home this week!

Enzo ran clean in Performance Grand Prix. The dogwalk exit was straight off so that made it easier. He ended up in 2nd place by 0.2 sec. There was one wide turn when I was late on my front cross so that cost a little time. I need to make sure I rotate quicker when I front cross. One of my bad habits.

In Performance Speed Jumping (or is it Performance Steeplechase now?) I was late on a front cross again and he almost took an off course jump but he called off of it but knocked the next bar. He still made it into the second round and got a Q.

Today we ran in gamblers first and this time it was a more reasonable gamble. You could pick either a weave send or teeter send so I picked the weave send. He sent out to the weaves but when he got there he stopped and looked at me standing next to the teeter and ran back. Gamblers just isn’t something I train for so can’t blame him. He did hit both dogwalks though! Then we had to run the 2nd round of PSJ right after that. Sometimes he’s slower when he does back to back runs but he wasn’t this time! I ended getting stuck behind him and got an off course.

P3 Standard was good but unfortunately he knocked the very last bar! I think he lost his footing in the dirt. I heard him scambling. oh well! nice run anyways.

P3 Snookers was pretty straightforward. I did two 6’s and two 7’s. He finished everything and ended up 1st for a Super Q! Good boy! Snookers with him always makes me a bit nervous since he’s and scanner and shoots away from me easily.

P3 jumpers had some tricky angles. At this point the dirt was hard packed with loose stuff on top so he had trouble with his footing and wasn’t able to run as fast. He tries to hard to move quicker, lots of scrambly steps and knocked a bar.

I’m happy with his runs this weekend even though the Q rate wasn’t high. He got 6 of 7 dogwalks and all of his aframes!

First of all this was Tooney’s return to agility! hooray! I just did one JWW run with her. She seemed really happy to be running again. One bar down that was mainly just because I fell behind at the straight tunnel. Her run went much better than Enzo’s did! Here’s Tooney’s video:

Enzo had a great run in Standard yesterday and won the class. Had a few wide turns but he nailed his running dogwalk! The front cross really seems to bring him down deep into the contact even if he does go a bit behind me. I’ve kind of figured out that I really just need to run hard so that he extends down into the zone.
Here’s the video that shows his dogwalk contact and then the other is a better view of the run.

Today Enzo had a nice JWW run but one bar came down. It was a really fast course so he was really skimming those bars.

Standard was quite an exciting run. Great dogwalk contact again. Kind of crazy aframe. He cut me off down that line at the end when I got behind. we need to work on that. Two different views again of this one.