Memorial Day weekend trial

It was hot in Hitchcock - damn hot. We only ran two days. Maya got 3 Qs and a QQ on Monday. Annie got only one Q all weekend, but it turned out to be our best video, so she gets featured above.

Now we're in the dog days of summer. Only one or two trials between now and September.

The Amazing Annie

Annie was born two days after Tex, but we didn't get her until about six months later. We saw her as a puppy, but she was less sociable and energetic than Tex, so we didn't get her right away. When we finally got her home, she was scared of everything and everybody. Agility training was a challenge, and we didn't start her until about 18 months after we started Tex. Here is video of her first run in competition:

That went alot better than Tex's first run, which I posted earlier. In fact, Annie has done very well, and we are closing in (ever so slowly) on her MACH.

The Magnificent (MACH2) Maya

Maya was our first agility dog, and by far our most successful one. I can't take any credit - she was trained by my wife along with our friend Shirley and the folks at EuroDog Training Center. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Maya was handled all the way to MACH2 by Shirley.

But about three years ago, I started to handle Maya in some competitions. If you are new at agility and get the chance to handle an experienced dog, I highly recommend you do it. I know that whenever we messed up, it was my fault, so that actually helped me identify those skills I was lacking - which, of course, was all of them.

Here, I think, is the video from the first time I ran Maya at a trial:

As you can see, my handling technique consisted largely of running around and occasionally, at random and unpredictable moments, waving my arm at Maya for emphasis (of my incompetance).

Fast forward three years - here is video from the 2008 AKC Nationals in Tulsa:

Oh, right. Still the same.

I've managed not to mess Maya up too badly - we've been to AKC Nationals twice, making the Challenger Round in 2007 and finishing 11th overall in the 8" class in 2008, and one of these days we'll get to MACH3. Unless my arm waving handling methodology fails me, that is.

Greg Derrett

Out of curiosity, I purchased a couple of inexpensive DVDs from AgilityNet.com that showed runs from what I assume to be a "local" agility trial in England. I wanted to get a sense of what a smaller trial in England was like.

Looked about the same as here, actually. RVs as far as the eye can see. Lots of border collies.

One of the handlers shown on the DVD is the famous Greg Derrett. In fact, he won the event with a very nice run:

He seems a good example of the handler using his own speed to motivate the dog. Of course, the dog is pretty fast on her own...

"Too Tall" Tex

Tex was my first agility dog. Not the family's first - that was Maya. I watched my wife and a friend of ours train and run Maya all the way to MACH2 and I thought "that looks both easy and fun." So I found Tex and designated him as my first agility dog.

He was born in March 2003, and we brought him home a couple of months later. Here is some rare archived footage of Tex as a puppy:

Aw, isn't he cute? The other dog in the clip is our old (and now departed) poodle mix Scooter, who Tex learned was a great deal of fun to torment.

So Tex and I started training for agility, which proved to not be any where near as easy as I anticipated. To make a long story short, I made every training mistake in the book, and some other mistakes that had not been published yet. But we forged ahead and tried our best. Here is some more rare footage, this of our first ever run at an AKC trial:

Nothing like a well trained dog being run by a skilled handler, eh? The AKC World Team tryouts are going on this weekend, and I bet alot of runs there looked just like this one.

We improved some after this, but not a whole lot - I should put together a blooper reel in fact. Tex is a great dog - smart, loyal, fun, energetic, kind to man and beast, and relatively clean. But he would rather stick his head in a bucket of live snakes than run agility, so I don't ask him to run (or do the snake thing either). We go for walks at Eisenhower Park instead.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

So this is "blogging." This is what happens in the "blogosphere." I'm just starting out with this, so we'll see how it goes.

My wife and I own three Pembroke Welsh Corgis (Maya, Annie, Tex); we do agility with each, to varying levels of success. I'll post about each of them eventually. The main point of this blog, as I start it, is to discuss our agility successes and failures and post the occasional video.

Here is an example:



This is Annie, videotaped at the 2008 AKC Agility Nationals in Tulsa. Notice how well she runs, only to NQ thanks to some less than stellar handling at the end by yours truly. The "great dog, shame about the handler" theme has been a constant in my agility career. At least I'm predictable.

So we'll try this blogging thing for awhile - posting after trials or whenever the mood hits me. Someday, I hope someone running a random GoogleBlogs search accidentally stumbles on my blog and enjoys it, at least a little. A man can dream, right?