USDAA Trial in Turlock

Crystal and I took the dogs to Turlock, CA for a USDAA agility trial this past weekend. Both West and Sonoma competed, and if you're wondering, yes they do compete against each other. The concept behind many of the agility organizations is that the dog starts at level 1, then moves to 2 when a certain set of criteria is met, then on to level 3 when that same criteria is met at the second level. Once in level 3, the dog competes to get its agility champion title of that organization by accomplishing a rigorous set of criteria. So for example, in AKC, the dog starts at Novice (level 1), then moves to Open (level 2), and finally competes in Excellent (level 3). Once you're in Excellent, you work towards your Master Agility Champion (or MACH). Sonoma started her agility "career" in AKC, and has achieved an Excellent title, and is currently working towards her MACH. We had heard that USDAA trials were a bit of a younger, more competitive crowd, so when West started competing, we decided to give them a try. So even though Sonoma is in Excellent in AKC, she has to start over again in Starters (USDAA level 1), alongside West, who has no titles in any organization.

So, this weekend we competed with both dogs in Starters. There are a lot of different "games" in USDAA agility, which means about 5 runs a day for each dog. In AKC agility, the dog typically only runs 3 different events. So if you think about it, we were used to sharing Sonoma's three runs per day in AKC, and now we have two dogs, running about 5 runs per day each in USDAA - a much different ballgame!! Overall, we had a lot of success (and a few learning opportunities). We walked away with a bunch of qualifying runs, and a few 1st and 2nd places. Both dogs are just one run away from their Starters title, and will hopefully be competing soon in Advanced (USDAA level 2). Here are a few pictures from the weekend. I must say, we have some really good looking dogs - but not that I'm biased...

West and Crystal competing. He doesn't knock this bar over, believe it or not, but he's taking a very short path around the course by jumping on the inside of each jump. Ideal placement for the dog over the jump in this circumstance :-)

You can see on the same jump, that Sonoma isn't hugging that inside of the jump as much as West. While she successfully completed the jump and made a nice turn, she probably lost a split second of time by taking a slightly longer path. And those split seconds add up. We'll work on our rear crosses (where the handler crosses behind the path of the dog to signal a turn) to tighten up that behavior.



Here's West and Sonoma each getting ready to launch! The "Sit, Stay" at the beginning of the course is probably the hardest behavior we ask of them out there. They get out on the course, the leash taken off (see it in the grass there??) and we lead out into the course somewhere. They are ready to RUN! West loads his legs up, and just wants to explode......... but he has to stay until we say the magical release word, "OKAY!"

At this point, Sonoma's "Sit, Stay" is much more reliable than West's... but rest assured, her heart is beating a million times a minute right now and her brain is firing like crazy! She's one step away from just letting her adrenaline take over...



Sonoma and me somewhere along the course. She's pretty serious.

One of Sonoma's best obstacles are the weave poles. To do the weaves successfully, the dogs must enter in between the first and second weave poles from the right to the left. They must alternate through each pair of poles, until they exit on the 12th on the left... Hmm, okay, I'll draw it out:

Sonoma having such reliable weave pole entries, allows us to be anywhere remotely close to the weaves and still have trust that she'll cleanly enter the poles and complete the entire set, without popping out somewhere a long the way.

And S coming out of the tunnel and making a nice tight right turn... Again, the tight turn out of the tunnel shortens the dog's path and keeps them from exploding out of the tunnel, adding distance (and ultimately time), and then finally turning yards away from the tunnel exit.

S jumping over the same jump (as before) a second time in the run, but this time heading straight instead of turning.

Before each event starts, the judge responsible for the ring will hold a "briefing". They will quickly review the rules of the game, answer competitors questions, and those types of things. In this particular briefing, our agility friends Matt and Penni, who both run border collies (Buzz and Einstein), are listening too. They are both in our Monday night class with West because their BCs are young, beginner dogs as well. Actually, their two dogs are siblings from the same litter and they just happen to train agility at the same place. It's fun to see the difference in the two dogs as they grow up with different handlers but are from the same pedigree.