Or maybe it's Nar-mageddon? Well, whatever event it was - it has taken Nari's start line stay! Not like we really had a nice one to begin with, but the 5 feet lead out I had before was nice. During this USDAA trial (it was in Franklin, TN on October 29-31, 2010), Nari would walk in the ring nicely on the least and stand still to let me take off her lead. The moment the lead was off - she ran around me in a circle while screaming and then twice she crashed into the first jump! It was quite comical and frustrating at the same time.
Despite the issues with our start line, we had so much fun at the trial! Nari had a blast and just wanted to get out there and run. There was one particular spot in the ring where dogs kept stopping to sniff. Since we're running in Masters, they give out faults for that. After the first day, the judges stopped giving faults because so many dogs kept pausing briefly in that spot. Apparently there was an AKC trial there a couple of weeks ago and the dogs were doing the same thing, so something is definitely out there. Oh, well!
Overall I think we did really well! We ended up with 5 total Q's - two in both Advanced Pairs Relay and Advanced Gamblers and a Q in Masters Jumpers. We also finished our Advanced Agility Dog title! We were so close to getting a third Advanced Gamblers Q but the buzzer went off right before she took the last jump in the joker. I just wasn't in a great position when the Joker started.
Here are videos of our runs:
Friday - notice how as soon as I take off the leash in Gamblers she immediately goes over a jump without me!! Luckily she was able to Q and finish her AAD.
Saturday -
Sunday -
I have given up on Kaiser's start line stay for the time being. We still drill it at home because I often do enjoy the advantage of a lead-out, but it seemed to stress him so much at trials that I dumped it and decided to run with him. He's getting really good at sling-shot starts, which at least give me a slight advantage.
ReplyDeleteNADAC courses are a bit different than USDAA, of course. I think lead-outs are probably far more important in USDAA since the likelihood of a turn right away is very high, whereas in NADAC we're generally pretty good if he just keeps running in a straight line. lol
Yep, we had another trial the weekend after this one (I just put up a post about it :)) and I gave up and went to the sling shot start. Not ideal at all so we are going to be working on this during our down time coming up. She has great start lines in practice and had them in Huntsville, AL back in mid-September so I'm not sure what happened. Whatever happened, I'm pretty sure it's all my fault :)
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