More park pics

I drove up to Edmonton today to attend a CKC agility trial held here this weekend. Normally I work Friday nights, so I don't get the chance to leave Calgary until 10pm.   But I happened to be off today, so we headed up around one in the afternoon.  The nice thing about leaving in the afternoon is not feeling rushed. In fact the shelties and I stopped in Red Deer at a dog park to stretch our legs and get some more pictures of the fur kids.

It was a nice way to break up the trip. I will have to do it again next time we head up this way.

 .





I'm pretty excited for our trial this weekend.  It feels like forever since I have been at an agility trial.  In reality it has only been two months, but for me that feels like ages!  I love CKC agility. I find that it is a very fair organisation for agility.  The jump heights are more reasonable than AAC, with a dog never jumping more than 2" above its height.  In AAC, Spryte would be a 22" regular, that is a big jump height for a dog that measures just over 16".  So she is in the Specials class, so that she can jump 16".  In CKC Spryte is a 16" Regular dog, as 18" is the cut off for this height class.  I think that  makes much more sense, and is safer for the dogs in the long run.

       

I also find that the levels are a little more  appropriate with their course challenges. Novice is very much novice.  There are no weaves and very few side changes. Often the tunnel shape changes the dogs direction for you.  To me again that makes perfect sense. To a young dog and a new handler, there is enough to worry about on course without adding extra handling options.  New handlers are just trying to remember the right order of obstacles, trying not to trip or run into an obstacle, hoping that their dog doesn't do zoomies around the ring.   New dogs are often still struggling with contact performance, jumping on the table and sticking it, holding start line stays, and following the handlers body. They also don't need the added stress of tough courses and odd angles.

Some faults are also allowed at the novice and intermediate level, so a minor error on the dog or handler's part does not always result in a non qualifying run. 

Of course as you move up through the levels the courses get much  more challenging and the rules get harder.  The CKC excellent level courses are comparable to AAC masters courses, the only difference being that darn table never goes away in CKC.

If my students have purebred dogs (unfortunately CKC still doesn't allow mixed breeds to participate) and there is a CKC agility trial coming up, then I always recommend they attend that show. It's a great way to build the confidence of both dog and handler, helping to start their agility career off on a positive note.

So Spryte will be in Novice tomorrow and Strider in Excellent.  It should be an interesting day. Hopefully I have some positive news to share tomorrow night.