The Curious Katie: NADAC Agility Trial Summary

This weekend was Basil's first competition with the agility venue called NADAC (North American Dog Agility Council). It was his second agility trial ever. He did very, very well overall. Photos first! Obviously I didn't take these myself, I bought them at the trial and edited them in Lightroom when I got home. I also purchased videos but I don't have those yet.

Basil - Pembroke Welsh Corgi - NADAC Trial Agility

Results:

Saturday

Standard (Regular) Round 1 - Eliminated (He ran half the course, got stressed halfway through, came back and finished it then ran out of the ring into the adjacent parking lot before my friend Ellen grabbed him. Scared the bejesus out of me.)
Standard (Regular) Round 2 - 3rd Place, NQ (Not a qualifying score) - We missed some obstacles, took an off course and I think he also ran past the last obstacle which is an automatic 20 point fault. We had 70 total faults in this class.
Jumpers Round 1 -5th Place, NQ- We did ok, had a little bobble midway through the course, missed an obstacle and came back to do it. He slowed down so much we got time faults on this one. We did successfully complete this course and he was wonderful and stayed with me. Did some great rear crosses!
Chances Round 1 - NQ - Can I just say, Novice Chances is freaking hard. The distance on this course is difficult for baby dogs. Anyway - we had an off course, I had to cross the gamble line to complete it but still only came in about a foot from where it was at so I got awesome distance practice anyway. I made the mistake of pulling him away from the correct discrimination obstacle.
Touch and Go Round 1 - 1st Place - Q (10 points) - Our last run of the day. Each run we both would get better and better. He did AMAZING on this run, had one little misstep but fixed it and quickly finished the course with lots of time to spare. His third fastest run of the day.

Sunday

Standard (Regular 3) - 2nd Place - NQ - He had a wonderful run but I pushed out him too much and he ran past the last obstacle at the end and got 20 faults for it.
Standard (Regular 4) - Eliminated - Basil did a great opening and then ran straight out of the ring through the final obstacle. Guess he was done.
Jumpers Round 2 - 2nd Place NQ - We had a beautiful run. He was brilliantly fast and did every single cross I asked of him. He just ran past the final obstacle and had to double back to finish it so it was an automatic 20 point fault. Again, I pushed out too much as we ran forward and he got way ahead of me. He ran 4.10 yards per second if that is any indication as to how fast this jumpers course was.
Chances Round 2 - NQ - He got the discrimination and then had an off course so I just did a few things on the way out.
Tunnelers - 2nd Place Q (10 points) - Beautiful run. We had so much fun doing this. One little slip up cost us 1st place but we got our Q with 6 seconds to spare.

The hard thing about doing agility with NADAC is that the courses are built with lots of straight lines and the obstacles are far apart. This means you are running your butt off with your dog, especially if they are fast. The gambles (sending the dog to obstacles at a distance) is really quite far away even for the Novice class. The courses are all timed and if you are too slow or make a mistake on the course you go over time and get faults then you don't qualify at all. Quite a challenge for a beginner dog and not as forgiving as the agility club CPE (Canine Performance Events).

Things to work on: Sending out at greater distances. Teaching Basil to take the obstacle I'm running towards even if he's 15 feet in front of me at an angle. Obstacle discrimination (the dog walk and A-frame/ tunnel discrimination was hard this weekend). I need to work on not being upset when the first run of the day goes badly. I was better this trial but not as good as I should have been.

Things he did well: His start line stay for most of the trial went really well. The last two runs he wasn't having it anymore and I had to do running starts. He did amazing rear crosses and stayed with me quite well for most of the runs. He was very happy out there running around and was happy at the trial.

Some photos that I did take at the trial:

My personal favorite - this is Jax (short for Jackson) an Italian Greyhound/Basenji mix at his first trial! He did amazing and got I think two qualifying scores. He had so much fun running around.