Monday, June 2, 2008

Addicted to Agility Trial

This weekend I entered the onion in a few runs at Addicted to Agility's second NADAC trial. It was held in Wrentham and the lovely location was just too convenient to pass up.

Saturday I brought HonorBug as travelling companion and entered Carmen in Tunnelers (all tunnels) and Touch and Go (contacts and tunnels). Carmen was great! She ran clean, fast, and happy for me. She Q'd and placed in both classes. Hooray!!

Touch and Go was the second class and she really thought about those contacts. I think contacts are really physically taxing for dogs. She worked with me though. Yay Carmen!

Nancy and Remy (AS) from class were kind enough to let us set up with them since I didn't bring my tent. They had a super day on Saturday. I think, and I might have this wrong, that they finished up a COUPLE of outstanding novice titles (Regular and Tunnelers), their Jumpers title, AND got their first Chances Q!! Woo-hoo! They are a fun team to watch play.

Sunday I brought Ike as the travelling companion and entered Carmen in Jumpers, Tunnelers, and Hoopers. Hoopers is a new titling class in NADAC that reminds me of a Snooker-type game. Totally different and yet similar. From the NADAC Exhibitor's Handbook:

The goal of Hoopers is to demonstrate the team's ability to handle and communicate effectively while the dog runs through a course consisting entirely of hoops (ground speed obstacles - see the FILES section of the NADACagility YahooGroup for pictures and design details).

The hoops are two different colors (Addicted's are red and blue). There are three "tests" which consist of patterns of red hoops the handler must guide the dog through. In order to do a "test" the dog must run through 3 blue hoops. Then the team can complete a "test." You have three chances to complete the "test" before the "test" is considered dead and you must run three blue hoops again in order to try another "test." Once a "test" has been completed successfully the handler/dog team must run three more blue hoops in order to complete another "test." For Novice, only two tests are required and then you run through the finish hoop. The real test in my mind is that this has to happen in 40 seconds or less (for Novice/small dogs - not sure about the other levels).

In our first run of the day (Jumpers), I got a bit confused and forgot which way we were supposed to enter the serpentine. I called Carmen to me too soon and then had to swing her around to start correctly. Unfortunately I did not take her wide enough and she hopped right over the jump, the wrong way (10 pt fault). Bad mum - this isn't Ike!! Other than my little foul up it was a GREAT run. Carmie was still feeling energetic and she made decent time.

By the time Tunnelers arrived she was POOPED!! It's a credit to Carmen's work ethic that she ran for me. The second day was really much harder for her. Her YPS was much slower and she seemed more tired in general. I see lots of conditioning in our future!

At the end of the day they ran Hoopers. Carmen must have gotten a second wind, she ran so well for me! She didn't care that there were strange hoops she had to run through - she was really "with" me. We Q'd!! Hooray Carmen.

For only her second outing she did fabulously, Qing in 3 out of 5 runs. And as always there are so many positive things to draw from the entire weekend. Just the fact that she is happy to work with me in a stimulating environment makes me happy!

3 comments:

Diana said...

wow, thats great. I havent seen the "hoops" before. Can you post a course map to give me and idea? thanks, Diana

manymuddypaws said...

That's great! Carmen seems like the kind of dog to give it her all 100% of the time. Good Job!

Jules said...

Thank, Ladies. :D Carmie is a special MS and VERY fun to run!

Diana - I finally got around to posting something that looks like the course and what we did.