Sunday, February 28, 2010

Addicted to Agility Trial

Yesterday Carmie and I attended the Addicted to Agility NADAC trial at Wide World of Indoor Sports in North Smithfield, RI. This is a brand-new facility that has super nice turf. It is the same field turf that they have at Gillette Stadium. There is 12" of rubber pellets beneath the turf; It had great traction and felt nice on the feet.


Addicted had half of the facility which equaled two soccer fields (soccer players had the other half). One field was the course and gate area and one was crating, this was divided by a pavement walk way with some benches. The facility employees acted as bouncers and kept all the families and their soccer players on "their" side. Very nice for dogs who aren't crazy about kids.

Carmie had a super day. I entered her in Regular, Jumpers, and Tunnelers. Carmie Q'd in all three finishing 3 titles: Novice Regular, Open Jumpers, and Open Tunnelers.

I was happiest with her Regular run, even though I placed my front cross in the wrong spot (you'll see tomorrow when I upload the video). Carmie got her weaves AND the discrimination issue (our nemesis) - A-frame over tunnel. Woo-hoo, Carmie!!

Given the fact that she has not been in a class since summer she ran like a superstar! I tried to employee some of the new tricks I learned at the recent Tracy Sklenar seminar (widening my stride and pumping my arms) and just be happy. Carmie appreciated it!

I was very concerned about what the lighting would be like for Carmen, but she had ZERO issues with it. Only in tunnelers did I feel like she was a bit disconnected from me. Given she is going into dark and coming out into light I could see how that would be a bit more difficult for her.

I didn't bring Bug because I can't run him at the moment and I didn't think he would appreciate hanging in a crate all day. I will be curious to see how he does at this facility. You can see people on the other side of the plexi-glass and I think it is likely he will feel compelled to check it out at first.

Carmie was entered today, as well. I scratched her because she had such a great day yesterday and hasn't been in class in months. I thought two days might be too much for her both mentally and physically. I didn't want to go today and then have a frustrating day because I was asking too much of my dog.

I did notice that I found the courses to be so much easier than my current class courses. There was flow! I don't know if I am a NADAC girl at heart (I guess I must be?), but I now appreciate running those twisty courses so much more. Due to the type of courses I have been running in class I walked the courses and felt much more confident - I could feel the flow (not that I ran them perfectly - ha!).

I do have video, but right now my computer will not communicate with the Flip. I will upload it tomorrow. I feel really lucky to have had such a great day with Carmie!

4 comments:

Sara said...

Wow, you had a great day! Congratulations. That looks like a cool facility. Looking forward to seeing the video.

I'm interested in watching some NADAC runs, since Oreo likes flow.

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

Glad you had a good day, I love NADAC their courses are always flowey and I love that you can do some training in the ring. That looks like a neat place, and the footing sounds VERY interesting

Diana said...

What a great day. Congrats! Diana

John Heffernan said...

You has some nice runs!