Awesome Agility Adventures:Jefferson's Journey: Run Forrest Run!!

We have just returned from an agility marathon of sorts – class on Thursday night, an AKC trial on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, class on Monday night, and finally, helping out with the Intro to Agility class on Tuesday night. Whew - I am beat! I could not be more proud of how well Jefferson has performed during the last 5 days. He is a real trooper!

As per our modus operandi, we aced our classes on Thursday and Monday nights. He was especially fast during Thursday night’s class and Standard run – finishing clean in 35 seconds. Not too shabby for a Cocker Spaniel! I was so excited about our 3 day AKC trial and looking forward to the implementation our training plan from Stuart Mah.

We were signed-up for 4 events each day: Open FAST, Novice JWW, Novice Standard and Time 2 Beat. I knew it would be a challenge for me to uphold my end of the training plan – whenever Jefferson took an off-course, I am to “go with it” and make-up my own agility course without attempting any corrections; rather, keep running fast and with enthusiasm like this was the planned course. I have to say – by the end of the weekend – I was getting pretty good at agility course design.

Despite this, we did have a few good runs – especially in Open FAST and our last Time 2 Beat when he finally ran the actual course that the judge designed. I especially enjoy FAST (much like USDAA Gamblers but not as fun) because the handler gets to make-up his/her own course in order to accumulate points to gain the “Q.” We missed the send bonus on the following run – by missing the first jump – but he accumulated 42 points in 27.7 seconds (course time is 35 seconds and 55 points needed). Such a fast little boy…so proud of his enthusiasm!!

Run Forrest (ahem...Jefferson, I mean...) RUN:

One of my favorite runs is “our” Novice JWW because it is totally made-up but looks like the actual course. My goal was to keep Jefferson running and happy so here is this one:

By the end of the weekend, he was running very fast and even made it through the last Time 2 Beat course as it was written. Unfortunately, I did not get this run on video; instead, over 5 minutes of grass, talking and views of all our butts and shoes….

Overall, this weekend was such a training success for Team J-Dawg. The temperatures were in the mid to upper 80s all three days and I was very worried about keeping Jefferson running. Last year during a very hot trial, he either slowly trotted the course or just stood around looking at me. Cocker Spaniels especially are known to get tired pretty quickly and not be too keen on the heat. So, the mere fact that he ran – and ran fast – is a huge accomplishment.

Another competitor came up to me after one of our faster runs and said that she noticed how well I was handling Jefferson to keep him motivated to run. She shared a few nuggets of wisdom with me that really hit close to home.

In order to get a clean agility run, your dog must run with joy, confidence and speed. Most of the times when your dog blows a contact, will not go “down” on the table, or refuses the weave poles during a trial, it is due to one of those three things lacking: joy, confidence or speed. As the team leader, the handler is responsible for ensuring our partners are experiencing joy on the run. If they have joy, the dog (and handler) will run with confidence and speed. I was so glad to hear this – talk about the “right words at the right time.”