Update on Sonoma!

I know with all the West puppy hype it seems like we've left Sonoma by the wayside. I want to assure her worried grandparents that, in fact, we are paying more attention to Sonoma than ever before. Over the Memorial Day weekend, she competed in an AKC trial in Dixon, CA. It was her first trial in the "Open" division.

(Footnote: In ACK agility trials, there are three main skill categories: Novice, Open, and Excellent. Additionally, there are different agility "games" that are run at each trial. These games have titles like Standard, Jumpers with Weaves (JWW), and FAST. Each game has slightly different rules and obstacles. In order to move from Novice to Open in a given game, the dog has to qualify in three runs - essentially score a 90 out of 100 or better. All dogs start in Novice and work their way up. Sonoma has received her Novice title in both Standard and JWW in only two trials - abnormally fast. She now has offical abbreviations after her AKC registered name indicating the novice agility titles.)

She qualified in both her Standard and JWW runs on Saturday, but we missed qualifying in the same events on Sunday. The courses on Sunday were noticeably harder than Saturday. The jumps were closer together, making it easier to knock a bar off, or on-course obstacles were closer to off-courses, tempting the dog... the nuances that result in not a sinlge qualifying run in our Open Standard class. But qualifying in half your runs in Open is still considered an impressive feat. Some people consider the Open division a black hole because it's hard to qualify and move up to the Excellent level. For Sonoma, it will only be a bump in the road.




This past weekend, we had an AKC trial in Palo Alto. Sonoma and Crystal performed great over the weekend, earning two first places - one for JWW on Saturday, and one for Standard on Sunday. Sonoma and I didn't do as well, and ended up with two NQs (non-qualifying runs). Our next trial we will be lined up for our Open Agility titles in both events.





Tomorrow night, we start in a new training class. Our instructor (Anne Kajava) invited us to be part of a "hand selected" group of dogs and handlers to study the "Greg Derrett" system of handling. I think this is a great chance to really challenge our limits, as I'm sure we are Sonoma's only limiting factor!

No longer is agility for a bunch of middle-aged women! We're making it young, athletic, and appealing to all people... I hope...