Why Knowing the Rules is Helpful

I discovered this weekend (actually today), that it is helpful if you REALLY actually know the rules of the sport you are participating in. For some reason, and I'm still not entirely sure why, I thought that in order to qualify in AKC Novice agility, you needed a clean run. I thought that the gimme part was that you didn't get any refusals on the weaves. Aside from the courses being less difficult than the upper levels, I thought the rules for qualification were essentially the same. Hmmm.....well, I am happy to say that I am an idiot. Slap on the forehead kind of idiot!

In a way, I'm glad that I didn't get around to posting an update about the trial yesterday because then I didn't have two days worth of mistakes to correct. So here goes. Heffner actually qualified in FOUR out of his FIVE runs this weekend, taking first place every single time!! Woo hoo!! That's right. The Standard run on Friday that I thought I had botched was in fact a qualifying run because you are allowed I believe three faults in Novice. We only had one; the jump refusal. Woo hoo!!

On Sunday we had FAST, JWW, and Standard. We did FAST first and it was a beautiful run! I was so thrilled with how well Heffner was running with me! I decided to throw in the weaves as a sort of warm up for him. I'm not as concerned with qualifying in FAST as the other two classes, so I felt fine potentially "wasting" time. But he nailed the send portion and the weaves immediately afterwards!! I was again, so proud of him! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, Kennedy even videoed it for us!! Yay!!




Next up was JWW. The run didn't start off too hot because I didn't really have Heffner hold his start line stay (I usually run with him) and I had planned on a lead out. So that part didn't go so well. I'm pretty sure that we got two refusals and I think we must have knocked a bar in order to not qualify. Basically, I did a really bad job as a handler on that run. That was the one run that we did not qualify on.

Our last run of the day was Standard. This was the same judge that we had on Friday. And she had a very similar start to her course that she did on Friday. Only this time, we started with a tunnel, then a jump, and then the chute. Not the most motivating way to start a course. Kind of makes it difficult to build up momentum. However, we Qed!! And I have to say, I am in LOVE with the new table rule! All you have to do is get your dog up on the table. There's no required sit or down. Love it!

After the trial was over with, we popped over to my sister-in-law's house to visit and have a fabulous dinner! They live on 5 beautiful acres and the dogs got to get out and run around, which they very much enjoyed. It was a great way to end the weekend!

Saturday I didn't end up going to PetUtopia's Fall Festival. I've been battling a head cold all week. Saturday morning I had to go in to work to do a few things and that pretty much wiped me out. So instead I stayed home, and vegged out on the couch watching old episodes of the Jersey Shore pretty much all day. And yes, I'm pretty sure that I lost several brain cells watching that show. Unfortunately, I think I've also become a little addicted to it. Gah!

Some other exciting news from the weekend is that our instructor got a MACH on one of the collies that she runs! That was really exciting and I have to admit that I started to get a little choked up watching her get the big ribbon.:oP

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, our obedience instructor got a frenchie puppy! He is sooooooo incredibly adorable!!! You can definitely say that she has a fondness for nontraditional breeds. She already has one frenchie who's at the utility level, with one leg so far. I have a feeling that's where she gets all of her patience from.;)

Oh yeah, and Bess still hasn't gone into season and it's driving me nuts. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to cancel her rally entries for the 9th and 10th, which is a big bummer. But I'm not about to do anything until she actually goes into season. It just sucks to have missed out on this past weekend with her and potentially this upcoming weekend. Oh well, that's life with an intact bitch!