Results!
I want to preface this post with the fact that we had so much fun at our first trial! It was a smaller scale one (I think only 40? dogs) and it was a great way to get started. Everyone was really supportive. Oh, and I got to meet one of Sheltie Forums' own, Katherine! It was really neat to meet her and Snap--what a beautiful boy he was! I hope we see them out there competing soon!
Secondly, Bentley did great! We saw a lot of stuff we had never seen before, and I was really impressed with how he handled it (better than me, of course!)
Ok, on to the results. We did Starters Gamblers and we needed 25 points in the opening and the gamble was 30. For anyone interested, the gamble was a jump, tunnel, jump (the same one from the beginning) down the middle of the course. Right over the tunnel was the A-frame. We've never done anything like that so I figured no way. Bentley did it! I couldn't believe it! He did go into the tunnel and come back out and then went back in, and the buzzer went off right as he was about to take the jump the second time. So close to a Q! So yay blue ribbon!
The second one was Starters Jumpers. There was only one cross (thank goodness) in this one, and it wasn't too bad. Bentley did the tire jump (he hates the tire jump for whatever reason) and I consider that a huge success! He did back jump one jump (and then went back over) but he was only .28 seconds from a Q time. Yay blue ribbon!
The next day wasn't quite as successful, but the course set ups were a lot harder. A lot of people were saying that the courses were really hard for starters.
We did Starters Gamblers again and I timed it out poorly. We got done with what I had planned and I was at a loss for what else to do
Luckily we did the dog walk twice (which was 5) and we only needed 13 in the opening, and we got 15. However, the gamble was a different story. I can't explain it, but I had never ever seen anything like it. Very hard! Bentley did the first jump and that was it, but I was proud of him!
Then the second Starters Jumpers had 3 crosses in it! Considering that Bentley has never really done a successful rear cross and there were 2, I was very happy with how he did. He knocked a bar because he felt me cross behind him (he's just not used to that) and then he missed the double jump, then backjumped it, then jumped it correctly (oops
) then he missed the tire jump, backjumped, then jumped it right. But he really did an excellent job! He got second in gamblers and third in jumpers on the second day. Considering the woman who won has been doing agility for 10 years and we started in September, I am thrilled!
Thanks for listening to me gab/brag/etc!
Ashley
There are only 3-4 dogs for both the gamblers and jumpers, so maybe we have a chance! And yes, Bentley is jumping 16"
