Extreme Braveheart
Our qualis were a little bit untypical this year, because just before the first ones we're learnt that there will only be two quali weekends, not three as usual, so the regulations were changed a bit to adapt to it. As the first one didn't go so well for me and Brava, it was our last chance, while Evo had already all the criteria met, so Roman was playing safe. Anyway. We were a bit surprised with the organizers' choice of judge, to put it mildly, especially that the courses of the said judge that we found on the web were just horrible, showing that she has no understanding of dog's lines whatsoever... the reality proved to be as bad as we expected.
I have my favourite types of courses and I have my favourite judges, of course. Still, I'm able to run pretty much everything as long as it makes any sense, is safe and in accordance with FCI agility regulations.
Well, this judge apparently never read them. Crazy distances I don't mind. The fact that the approaches to tyre and long jump were not straight, I could tolerate (because I have medium dog, who turns well and is smart). But the fact that almost all the entries to the contact obstacles were just plain dangerous was really too much and we protested a lot and actually CHANGED the courses, which I would think was outrageous, if it wasn't for the fact that they were dangerous, full stop.
I had to withdraw Brego from the competition due to some minor injury and was really sorry about that until I saw the courses... because for a young and crazy dog like him they would have been really dangerous, so in the end I was no longer sorry he isn't running.
Brava had clean jumping on Saturday and one refusal in agility run, which meant that the situation is not bad (I could still fulfill the criteria of no more than 25% eliminations), but I was still lacking one clean agility run that I needed to qualify. Evo had elimination in agility which meant that Roman needed to withdraw him from other runs, as he was the only one with all the criteria for team qualis met and couldn't have another elimination so as not to loose it ( our regulations say that if at least one dog fulfills the criteria for team quali, the others can be added to fill the team, but as one of the criteria is no more than 25% eliminations, one has to be careful not to get one dis too many... I really hate this rule, agility should be about running as the devil, not playing it safe... and with a small number of dogs competing it really leads to pathologies that sometimes it's better not to run than to run). Anyway, on Sunday morning I actually felt quite good, but got really tensed before the agility run as it was THE LAST CHANCE to meet this criterion. The course was again quite stupid, with crazy distances like 12 meters between the obstacles (which is not allowed by our regulations....). But what friends are for? I kept reminding myself what Barbara said that I actually can run better under pressure and fortunately Monika reminded me words of one of my favourite trainers, Jenny Damm, that my dog has all the skills needed, I have all the skills needed, so only bad luck could stop us... Fortunately, we had GOOD luck - it wasn't a perfect run (because the course was stupid :P), but it was clean, which meant I had the points and clean agility, so Brava already secured herself the spot for individual qualis. After that I felt confident that we can also run clean jumping, which we did, winning both individual and team qualis in all the categories (and who's the best yellow doggy on the planet? <3)).
So, in the end: both Brava with me and Evo with Roman qualified for Agility World Championship 2015 in Bolonia for both team and individual!!!!
So, enough of rant, now for the videos:
I am also very proud of one of my student's dog, who had her debut this weekend in zero class and was as awesome as a beginning dog could be :) Perfect sit stays, really nice turns and nice A-frame contact :). And fast as a lightning :). Way to go Robert and Kissy :).
And last but not least, I have to brag about Roman and Vigo :). Vigo is over 10 years old now and is as nuts as ever, but he really did his best this weekend :). Here is his clean agility run from Saturday: