Albany

Well from now on Cypher is going to come to every country trial. We went to Albany on the weekend – an 800km round trip. Yes, quite simply agility addicts are insane but quite frankly we like our insanity and we nurture it with great aplomb. We had 8 runs – four for Raven and four for Cypher. Initially I made the decision to do country trials this year because I am aiming for Agility Champ cards for Raven, I decided to bring Cypher mainly to get more runs in for that length of travel I need to do. Cypher did me proud again gaining 3rd place in Masters Jumping and 3rd place in Open Agility. In Masters Agility he had a moment of temporary deafness closely followed by a dash of tunnel suck, and in Open Jumping it was down to good old frustratingly consistent handler error. Said handler for once unable to get the verbals out quick enough….usually my problem is the other way around (ie not knowing when to shut up!). I was really pleased with our two clear runs as not once did he lose focus for a second. Raven well…what can I say she was having a bad bar day and my handling wasn’t helping. In Masters Agility we were great up until the table when I let her pressure me and said the wrong thing, she then went off course by placing some paws on the dogwalk, sucked into the obvious tunnel entry. But she kept her bars up in that run at least. In Open Agility she had two not very difficult bars down one after the other so we stopped and left. In Open Jumping the same thing occurred and in Masters Jumping we were going great guns until I thought I should try for that front cross into a serpentine which was a very stupid idea as she brought the bar down in her rush to try and catch up with me. When I thought about it afterwards I didn’t actually need that front cross as she would have handled that serpentine quite nicely if I had just stayed on the nearest side of it. Grrrrrr….stoopid handler!!
Oh well two weeks till the Classic! Lots to train as usual…and Greg Derrett to look forward to next week!