Agility training

That's why she should move to the NorthEast, where we have tons of USDAA which has no entry limits! Not only can you send your entry two days before close, but I've emailed very patient trial secretaries two days *after* their trials have closed and gotten in It's one of the biggest turn-offs for me of AKC. I would never be good about jumping through hoops to get my entries in. The two AKC trials I do yearly (because they are 20 minutes from my house), I give my entries and check to a friend and let them do it!

I want Meg Lovely run, you know it is well done when you make it 'look' easy. Well done.

[YOUTUBE]lVyWES_xdQs[/YOUTUBE]

If I figured out how to make that work right, that should be Gusto's first ever jumpers run. Ignore the fact that my front crosses are late late late, and just admire the adorableness that is Gusto. One of my biggest goals for his first trial was his start line, and I'm proud to say all four of them were just like this one! And for the love of Dog, someone tie my hands together. Why am I clapping? I never notice myself doing it! Ugh - this is why I have a love/hate relationship with having my runs taped!

I'm grinning like a fool. Thanks for the nice comments. She really is such a special dog; I love every minute of running her these days.

Oh my goodness Gusto looks fantastic!?i never would have guessed tht was his first. Our Jumpers run was not nearly as successful lol. Lo decided midway that she'd about had it and went to go love on the judge. I got her attention back and we finished, sloooowly but we finished.

But in her defense, it was the very last set of runs at about 4:00 and we'd been there since 7 am.

Go Meg!

And awww....Gusto! He's just having a great time isn't he? Very nice job with the baby dog

There's no hoops to jump through here, our AKC trials rarely fill. You enter when you feel like it. Mostly have online entry, too, so you can wait till the very last minute if you want.

CPE trials, OTOH, tend to fill. There's one site where they run one ring CPE trials that fill on the first day. The ones with at least 2 rings take longer.

The local trial NEVER fills. But that's because the club is kinda terrible and even with super low entry numbers the trials run 'til 6pm. I've been to full trials that still manage to finish before 4pm. Yeeeeah.

There are only two places around here that fill; Indy sometimes fills but almost always has room for everybody once people pull for various reasons. I have been waitlisted before, but I've never had a trial where I was waitlisted and didn't make it in. I got waitlisted for herding at shelties nats but made it in there too (and that was because I waited forever to pull the trigger on that entry.) The trials that typically fill also usually use random draw versus first received; they open for the draw, everybody sends in, and two weeks later they do the draw. After the draw it's first received, but IMO when they know they are going to get lots of entries it's pretty fair to do a draw.

But it's really not hoops to jump through... write the check, fill out the form, and send it in. Your job is done at that point.

It won't let me watch Meg's video. But I could see Gusto's! I love him.

Grabbed a video of my session with Zinga today. We were working a front cross drill here and I love how tight she is wrapping jumps! Cik/cak ftw. These are also the longest sequences we've done to date, 8 obstacles. She's 10 months old today.

[YOUTUBE]Fx65lx8PsXo[/YOUTUBE]

Her wraps are amazing, she is going to be an awesome agility girl!

I can't wait to train my next dog with cik/cak from the beginning. It really is crazy how complex sequences can be run with a young dog with cik/cak. I'm handling a friend's 7 month old BC in a Trkman style foundations class and we tear up the sequences, no problem!

I know!! I'm so happy I started off with wraps right away. Zuma is so dang wide on everything even though we've retrained cik/cap twice and are in the middle of retraining it a THIRD time. Part of it is her, she goes wide on everything, even in disc. Zinga is always much tighter in general.

Holy cow, around here it is insane. One of our club members got his entry ripped up because the trial opened at something like noon that day, and he Fed-Exed it overnight and it got delivered at 10:30 am. The AKC trials almost always fill the first day of open entries. Everyone over-nights the day before.

Zinga looks wonderful! What a cool girl she is going to be. I am also super jealous of your training space

That's how it is here, too. So I planned my hopeful trialing schedule/budgeting keeping in mind that I will probably have to pay a bunch extra to overnight things. Blah.

Sara - OK you've convinced me. Sending Kimma to you now to train... Have fun (Seriously, though, you guys are AWESOME!!!!!!!)

FedEx, Priority mail, etc. are not allowed here. There are no online entries. First-class and hope for the best. Nothing like trying to time your entry via the standard USPS...!

There are still only the two USDAA trials even remotely near me, and they are still quite a drive. I haven't heard any suggestions of adding trials in this area.

For entries here they go by the postmarked date so you can't send it before opening. No FedEx either. I send mine xpresspost the day they open.

That's for AAC, which almost always fill here. CKC is different and never fills and some have online entry.

Around here it can vary, some trials you have to send in the day before it opens by xpresspost and hope you get in. While others you can enter the day before. Many years ago, if you didn't send the day before, you often didn't get in especially for the winter trials. Now we have so many trials on almost every weekend that we can pick and chose which ones. On any given weekend, I typically have at least 2 trials within 2hrs of home and more if I want to drive a bit further.

Our AKC trials are random draw here and normally get 2-3x as many entries as runs available. USDAA trials don't have a max number of runs, but because of that are just ridiculously long when they are just 1 ring. The last USDAA trial I was facility manager for, I didn't leave the building until close to 9pm when generally I leave around 6:30 or so for other venues. CPE is first received but fills on the same day now, so they are moving to random draw as well.

During the summer we have a nice two ring facility in the southern cities that works out a lot better, but during the winter, it's awful trying to get in.

Thanks! We are pretty fortunate to have such a fantastic facility, even more fortunate that I work there and get to use it on off hours!

I think you are doing a pretty awesome job yourself! However..... I would totally steal Kimma in a heartbeat, so just be aware that you may never see her again.....

Recon and Frag both had class last night despite a HUGE nasty winter storm rolling in. Frag did alright, it is a skills class in a smaller barn, so we were working on send outs, weaves, and small cross sequences. He's ALMOST back to being able to run 6 straight weaves from any angle entrance. We didn't work on weaves much over the summer and he lost it.. He was doing 6 closed no problem and 12 with the entrance and end bent great, and then forgot. So we're getting there again! Unfortunately the floor was a little slippery so he fell a couple of times and it was hard to get up to speed without slipping.

Recon on the other hand DEMOLISHED his class. We started working weaves on both sides driving to a target for reward and you couldn't stop this guy from weaving down AND back. These are completely open weaves FYI, so he is just running down a straight path upright. We then worked on the teeter from table to table and took one out to start integrating the movement and bang. He didn't care one bit and went flying over the teeter every time. He was a little enthusiastic and very fast, so we kept him on a leash to make sure he had his feet under him at all times. Only challenging part was a jump/post turn/weaves at the end. When we would start to turn, despite having food in my hand to keep him on my right, he'd fly to the target lid and sit for my instructor. So we had to re-do that 3 times before he got it, but he was a happy boy regardless. Successful class.

I think ours mostly go by postmark date for the opening date, too, though to be honest, I don't pay a lot of attention since I don't typically enter until near closing. The exception being the Rose City Classic shows, those do tend to fill, so I send in my entry early. Doesn't have to be day of, but you can't wait until last minute for that one.

I also have a trial secretary who lives around the corner from me. She doesn't secretary so many trials anymore, but a few a year. I just walk around the corner and stick my entry in through her mail slot. I draw a stamp on the envelope so it's all proper.

You cannot leave it very late to enter our AAC trials or you get shut out. We have to mail our entries in (no on-line entries) and the mails can get very slow around here. I always try and get my entries in as soon as they start to accept them. Only shut-out on one trial so far.