MIA - Mired Intensely in Agility

Oh, hi there!

I have been MIA for sure.  What have I been up to you ask?

Some sewing, though not recently, which is an entire saga of its own. However, I have made some progress that I do want to share since there are a few exiting things in that mix.

But mostly, it has been me and main man Dexter tearing it up in agility.  While this isn't a blog about the sport of dog agility, it is what I have been spending most of my time on, so bear with me.

I started in the sport of dog agility a little over four years ago.  I had seen a few competitions on TV and thought it was just. so. COOL.  How can I get my dog to do that?!  I had wanted to take a class ever since I got Maddie, but was in college and really, just a complete chicken.  Plus, the internet was still taking shape and random, small groups of enthusiasts were not always easy to find.

Anywho, when Dexter was two, I decided that I needed to just give it a whirl.  Maddie was already getting older and Dexter was so shy, that I thought it would be a good confidence booster for him (I was right).  After about the second class, I was completely hooked.  Fast forward four years.  I have been teaching a Foundation class for over a year now, got talked into being the secretary of the club board (even though I am not very good at it) and Dexter and I are solidly in the Intermediate level in competition.

What does agility look like?

Well, if you are Dexter, it looks pretty darn good :)

Photo by Joe Camp

Here is a video of a standard course we ran this past January:

Standard courses contain all of the different pieces of equipment and are done in a pre-determined order.  Pretty much anything that goes wrong (dropped bar, off course, missed contact) disqualifies you.  The other question I get a lot about agility competition is if the course is always the same.  The short answer is no.  You get a course map at the beginning of the day that you can look at and then you get about seven minutes to walk through the course (without your dog) and plan how you are going to tell them where to go.

Here is a Grand Prix course we ran in April.  The fact that Dexter jumps off the dog walk before touching the yellow (missed contact) disqualifies us, but other than that, this is a pretty good run.

There are other types of games in agility.  Rather than run down a list, I will just tell you about one of my favorites, Jumpers.

Jumpers is just jumps and tunnels. It really tests the handlers skill at getting the dog around the course in the right order.  It also doesn't have pesky things like contacts :)  For a little laugh at my expense, here is our Jumpers run from the same trial as the above Grand Prix run.  These two runs occurred about ten minutes apart and only had about a minute to walk through the course.  You may notice that I completely disconnect from dog to look at the cones and read the numbers!  Oh and I almost do a full-on face plant, that was fun.

Here is a much prettier Elite run from ASCA this January:

Yes, it was VERY cold.

When do you do all of this?

On weekends of course!  And they take all weekend.  Most trials start at 8 am and you want to arrive onsite about a half hour to 45 minutes before hand.  Some venues (like the one with the blue background) require travel and hotel stay.  Others are about an hour away and we just drive each morning.  Which is to say, we get up REALLY early.  We generally get home around five or six unless we have traveled far and wide.  We like to cap of the weekend with a few beers at our favorite local watering hole, Laurelwood, and then go home and do nothing.  Between weekend competitions, the class I teach, the class I take and the practice time in the barn, agility takes most, if not all, of my free time.

Just one more run, please!

How do you manage all of this?

I would be remiss if I didn't mention in this post that I have the most awesome, incredible husband of all time. I don't know what I would do without him.  He loads the car, sets up our crating area, takes all the video, makes sure I am where I need to be and is always there to "catch" my dog if I have to sprint across the arena to try and make a walk through as in the above mentioned scenario.  He does many jobs as an agility support spouse but I think most importantly he reminds me that whether we (meaning me) fall our face or take first place, we are loved and supported and that is a wonderful thing.

Buddy excellently performing the job of "dog holder"