Our Annual CKC Agility Weekend

The Lethbridge and District Kennel Club CKC agility trial has come and gone for another year. I don't do much CKC as it costs a bit more than AAC and there really aren't a lot of trials around these parts. This was our third trial and we were competing at the Excellent A level. Izzie ran well all weekend, only a few little things like a couple of missed weave entries and a pretty gnarly table slide off. Other than that she ran fast and happy, just how we like, and she went 2/4 which narrowly misses her AGXS title. We'll get it next year, I have no worries about that! But even better was the fact that all her runs, she ran about 20-30 seconds under time. That's HUGE for the Iz and is a major win. She's definitely feeling good and my newly refined ability to move and focus is making a huge difference in our performance. 

Anyway! Take home points...

1. Izzie knows how to weave, but she gets all weird when I over handle for it and don't trust her to find her entry and ends up missing it. Don't over handle, she can find her entry. 

2. We prefer to run tighter, more technical courses. Wide open courses with lots of running and time to think are more common in CKC than AAC (depending on the judge). We can do them fine, the courses don't tend to get us, but they're not our preference. I find that Izzie likes the connection through handling of the more technical courses as it keeps her engaged (And well, I like all the twisty junk and challenges so I'm probably in a different mindset too). So I guess I need to learn to like wide open courses too. 

3. Tables that aren't rubberized are slippery as... Well as a bad word that I would normally say but I know children read this now so I probably should cut back on the f-bombs. Note to self, put hands on the table during the walkthrough to take note of the surface and know how to handle for it. 

Other than that it was a great weekend and ran smoothly. We ended up getting out of there pretty early both days! I got to cheer on lots of my friends who were very successful at their respective levels, Q or not they ran great! I even learned how to scribe for CKC agility (there's a bit of a difference in what you write compared to AAC). Can't wait for next year for sure!