Sunday, April 26, 2015

Cookie Monsters

Keltic reminded me that we were supposed to show everyone what he got for his birthday presents. He got a dragon with a rattle and squeaker, a bone that you can put treats in along with treats for it and both he and Beckett got a big cookie.

 

Keltic got the crown shaped cookie and Beckett got the party hat. I tried to take pictures of Keltic eating his cookie but he runs away. I think he thinks that I'll take it from him. Keltic really is a cookie monster; he eats so fast that he's done long before Beckett so the video is only of Beckett.

Beckett had to eat the icing off of his cookie before he ate the cookie.What a guy!






Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Title Match

Well, last weekend we had just a pawsome agility weekend. The weather was nice so it wasn't too cold in the arena; in fact when the heaters were on I found it a bit too warm.

Saturday I was just there with Keltic, I had entered him in four events; two advanced games, a Jumpers and a Snooker and two Starter Standard runs.  He needed one Starter Standard for his Starter title - Agility Dog of Canada. Beckett stayed home so he wouldn't have to spend the day in a crate. The first run was an Advanced Snooker, I handled one of the red jumps badly and Keltic back jumped it, so tweet went the judge's whistle before we had enough points to Q. Our next run was  beautiful, just a lovely run on the Advanced Jumpers course. I felt very connected with Keltic.

Advanced Jumpers
Keltic ran the course in 26.4 seconds running 4.85 yards per second. The course time was set at 40 seconds so we were well under that. I'll have to watch who is judging the next time we run Jumpers as he has two qualifying scores with this judge and you need to have qualifying scores under two judges to move up to Masters.  We then had a bit of break before the Starters events began and I worked the first Starter event.  The Standards were the next two events so the wait wasn't too long. Keltic was pretty good about his start lines and in his first Starter Std he did try to get his weaves but he had no two on, two off on his contacts; he barely slowed down, luckily he hit the all contact zones.

Starter Standard 1

Video of Keltic's Starter Standard ADC title run
 Keltic got his third qualifying score on Starter Standard 1 and with that his title of Agility Dog of Canada. Since you can't do same day move-ups and in any case the Advanced events had already run, we still had another Starter Standard to run.  We could have just gone home but decided to stay and just have some fun.
Starter Standard 2
Keltic surprised me and got another qualifying score in this Standard as well. All of his Q's were also the best runs of the mini Regular dogs so he also got a stuffed toy for each of those runs. So now my little man is all in Advanced and, as a result, will run with a handicap in this year's K9 Kup.

Keltic with ribbons and toys.
When we got home, I told Beckett that he couldn't let his little brother show him up and he had to go three for four as well. I told him I wanted a Steeplechase Q and two Standards, Beckett didn't get it quite right, he got a Steeplechase Q, a Master Jumpers Q and one Master Standard Q.  The Steeplechase run was our first of the day on Sunday. They are nice flowing courses so they are a great way to begin the day.

Steeplechase
Beckett had one little bobble in this run but luckily for us there are no refusals called in Steeplechase which is another reason we love it. I love Beckett's weave entries in this run and he sure made me run to get the blind cross in after the last tunnel.  The little bobble probably cost him first place as we were 1/10th of a second behind the first place dog.



The Jumpers run was a beautiful run, again I felt very connected with Beckett. I just love when that happens; sometimes you seem to be just reacting but when it comes together you really understand that there is a deep human-animal bond.

Master Jumpers 
Beckett ran the course in 26.82 running 5.56 yards per second. The course time was 41 seconds. I think Beckett really likes to run as a 10" Special. This was also a first place run.

Beckett then had a five fault Master Std, he spun and got a refusal when I tried to get him to turn out to the tunnel off of the A-frame(obstacle 10 to 11).

Master Standard 1


The next Standard run had a turn away to a tunnel off the dog walk and I worried he would do the same thing but he didn't and we were clean for the Q and another first place. Beckett ran the course in 42.91, running 4.29 yards per second on a course that had a course time of 63 seconds.



So Beckett went 3 for four too but he only won one best run toy. Beckett has some stiff competition with a miniature poodle named Keaton. In the four events they did together, Keaton won twice and Beckett won twice. So why did Beckett only get one Best Run toy well that's because if there are not enough dogs entered they combine all Specials.  So in one events where Beckett was the first place mini Special (6" and 10" jump heights),   an Open Special dog (16" and 22" jump heights) was faster than Beckett, a mini dog. It's hard for the little guys to beat the bigger dogs but sometimes they can.

Beckett with ribbons and toy.

We had a great weekend, hope that it was the first of many more this season.