Puyallup Valley Dog Fanciers Club Agility Trial
Redmond, Wa., August 21, 2004
Judges: Dan Selthofer, Joan Meyer
This is one of the larger dog shows in this area during the summer. It is a conformation, obedience and agility trial, all in the same place. The Agility trial was 600 runs per day, outdoors on grass. The temperature was in the mid 70's and was finally cool enough where you didn't have to worry about your dog getting too hot.
Standard Course 1:
I have no video of this run because I asked someone to film it that wasn't familiar with video equipment and they "messed it up" by pushing the wrong button to start the camera. The judge earned her pay on Al's run, because she was busy waving her arms for missed contacts, and a couple of refusals. Al had a great time!
The nicest thing that came out of this run is that someone came up to me afterwards and paid me the nicest compliment. They said that "even though Al had several mistakes, I handled the course as if everything that happened was exactly what I wanted from him." This is the way I want Al to go through a course. He had a very happy celebration afterwards, and was sure he was the best dog in the world at that moment.
Al had a great run on this course. We ran perfectly together as a team, and Al followed every signal that I gave him. Even for the two jumps that we took that were not part of the course?!!
The course had a pin wheel sequence that when I came to a second time I stupidly decided to do the pinwheel again?? Where is your brain??? We ran perfectly on to the finish line and in doing so we missed doing the two jumps we were supposed to do.
Actually, I liked my course better than the one we were supposed to run. Surprisingly, 4 or 5 other handlers did some version of exactly what I did. It was upsetting to have gotten lost, but when you come out of a fast turn and front cross, if you miss getting your bearings, this will happen. The good thing again, is that we kept moving, and Al had no idea that we didn't run the course properly.
On Saturday night and most of Sunday, the skies opened up and it poured rain. In almost never rains in August in Seattle, but it did on this weekend. The result of the 3 inches of rain that fell Saturday night was a flooded field with hundreds of shade tents and shelters flooded. When we arrived to compete everyone on the field was retrieving their tents or moving equipment, and the field and spectator areas had 4 inches of water over most of it.
As a result, the event was cancelled. The Agility club vigorously tried to continue with the Agility trial, in a drier part of the park, but the Club that had leased the park, and was putting on the Dog Show and Obedience trial refused to give permission because of the liability they thought existed if the field were damaged.
