Bandit earned one more leg towards each of his Novice Agility titles this weekend. One more for each, and he gets his title and moves on to the Open class!
Saturday we drove up to Palo Alto and got there a bit earlier than we needed to. We didn't think we would be there very long, so we didn't bother to set up the canopy. It turned out we were there for 5 hours, and Marc got burned like a lobster. I got a teeny bit burned, but mostly just got a nice farmer's tan.
Bandit did great on the jumpers course. Our one bobble was at the weave poles, which he almost always misses the entry on (we're practicing!). Then when we went to fix it, he paused for a second and looked around, in the general vicinity of where he knew Marc was sitting. It was kind of an "uh oh" moment, but I was able to get his attention back, and we finished cleanly to qualify. We placed 3rd in this one, and got a nice yellow ribbon. There were 6 dogs in our class, and we were 7 seconds slower than the 1st place dog.
Here's the video: Jumpers Course
The next course was the standard course, and this one was a disaster. We got through 4 obstacles before Bandit completely left my side, and started just wandering around and ignored me. Since he just didn't seem focused, I just grabbed him and took him out of the ring.
Sunday was better - we got there later, which meant I got to sleep in more. The jumpers course was pretty challenging for a novice course, and quite a few people had problems with some of the turns. Bandit did great, and even held his stay at the start line AND got his weave pole entry right the first time. But he inexplicably dropped a bar, and so that was that. In a way it's kind of unfair that in novice if you drop a bar you get disqualified, but your dog is allowed to go off course a few times and you can still qualify. Bandit is kind of lazy about his jumping - he jumps only enough to clear the bar, so it's inevitable that he'll drop some.
It was a bummer too - he was one of only two dogs in his class to actually even finish and get a time, and his was faster than the other dog.
The standard course was a more reasonable course, and pretty fun to run. Bandit was pretty fired up for this one. He really wanted to break his stay on the table, you can see his body flinch a couple times in the video. When we crossed the finish jump, he was totally barking at me, he was so fired up. We got 1st place in this one! 4 out of 5 dogs qualified, and he was 2 seconds faster than the 2nd place dog, and 12 seconds faster than the 3rd and 4th place dogs.
Video for this one is here: Standard Course
All in all it was a fun weekend. We had the potential to get his titles this weekend, but 2 out of 4 isn't bad. And we got to take home ribbons and a toy for Bandit.
Saturday night we also went to see Cars. It's no Finding Nemo, but it was a great movie nonetheless. Pixar's animation is just amazing.
We spent most of Sunday afternoon packing for the move. I hate packing. The funny thing is, I think half the stuff gets packed, and the other half goes in the garbage. It's crazy how much crap you accumulate.
Yay, Bandit!!! Not bad for a former DQ-only dog. :)
Yup, he's getting better. And he looks like he really enjoys it too. :)
I did look at the results for the more advanced classes, and a lot of dogs DQ (or NQ, as they call it) in those classes as well (granted, they have to run nearly perfectly). So that makes me feel better about it.