This weekend was the Pensacola Agility League's first USDAA trial.  I ultimately decided to go to the show because it was fall break and I had Friday off school, and because I wanted to support the new club. 

My initial plan was to head over to Florida Thursday afternoon, but when I found out the price of the hotels around there, I decided to just drive up Friday morning before the trial.  So I had to wake up at 3 a.m. and drive, which actually wasn't as bad as I had feared.  The massive amounts of caffeine probably helped a lot. 

As far as qualifying goes, I guess this weekend should be considered a big failure.  But I had so much fun, and agility trials are becoming scarcer in our area, so I'm definitely glad we went. 

Sniper was entered in Gamblers all 3 days because he needs those 2 Gamblers Qs.  Sniper was very cocky this weekend and decided that he didn't need me to tell him what to do.  He would pick an obstacle and go do it, despite the fact I was standing there calling him to come.  Of course you can't Q if you don't do the judge's course.  I had also entered Sniper in Standard all three days.  I don't know what I was thinking when I did that.  It ended up being good though, because I was able to use thise runs to make him stay with me in the ring.  Sniper was also entered in Pairs with Jedi on Saturday, which he ran very well except that he decided the teeter was going to kill him. 

Red was Red.  There were some runs where he was freaked out and couldn't manage more than a few obstacles, and there were some runs where you could actually see the makings of an agility dog.  I still haven't figured out why he does so well some runs and not so well on other runs.  I didn't know if I was somehow causing the problem, so we tried a little experiment and had Tracey run Red.  That didn't work.  He made a lap around the ring and then ran out looking for his mom.  He's such a big baby.  I also realized that I need to work with Red on USDAA specification obstacles.  Since we train with an AKC club, all of their obstacles are AKC standard.  So Red is used to a shorter Aframe and A larger diameter tire jump.  Poor dog got to the top of the Aframe and decided it was too steep to come down, and he refused the tire a few times on the first day before he figured it out. 

Sniper gave me quite a scare this weekend.  I was woken up Friday night in the hotel to the sound of Sniper crying.  He was sitting all hunched up like dogs do when they are in pain and even refused a treat when I offered him one.  For Sniper, that is a big deal.  He seemed to be hurting pretty bad, so I was frantically thinking about skipping agility the next day and finding a good vet and getting radiographs and a million things like that.  We went back to sleep, and when we woke up in the morning Sniper seemed sore, but nothing near what he had been during the night.  So I took him to the agility trial where Tracey did some doggy chiropractor work on him and found some antiinflammatories, and Sniper was able to run agility with no problems. 

Tracey's guys had a good weekend, and happily they actually managed to bring home some of those maroon ribbons.