Judging Debut

After passing my KC exams in January I was really excited about starting my Judging career at Adams Agility Show on Sunday 12th August.

I'd entered Reno for runs on both Friday and Saturday as one of my judges perks was that they were free.

Both the Agility courses on Friday (judged by Clive Foden) had an A-frame/tunnel combination at the beginning and Reno was consistent in not stopping on the contact so I eliminated him by replacing him in both!!

Unfortunately going into the tunnel too early also caused us to be eliminated in the Jumping on Friday and his 4-5 Agility on Saturday.

His two best runs came in the 1-4 Jumping (judged by Katie) and Karen Miaskowski's 4-7 Agility, picking up a 5r at the weaves in the jumping when he decided to try and get Speedy's attention and just having a pole down in the Agility.

So here are my courses from the Sunday:-)

Large, Medium and Small 1-3 Agility

There were some great runs on this course, particularly in the large, and some very unfortunate "if only's"!!

Medium and Small 5-7 Agility

Again some good runs on this course but I was surprised to see so may handlers take thier dogs through the gap between 4 and 5 to go onto the See Saw at 6.  In my opinion this wasn't a good (or particularly safe) entry onto the contact and I hadn't expected anyone to do it when it was so easy to turn the dog the other side of 5.  Luckily nothing went wrong and it's a lesson for the future.

Large 6-7 Agility

This was the one I was looking forward to......The reason why I wanted to judge at KC:-)  To avoid comparisons in terms of complexity between this and the 5-7 course I decided to make it completely different.  The course was definitely the type I enjoy running - plenty of space to allow the dogs to enjoy themselves (in fact Reno had a pretty good go at it when I set it up the night before, only missing the weave entry). 

I was so proud to see the handlers attacking the course, again some great clears and "if only's".  The only disappointment was seeing Alan Gardner do an amazing run only to find that the timing hadn't worked and to be E'd on the re-run:-(

Something I haven't had to consider too much before is judging position because we don't judge up contacts at Agility Nuts.  This course has made me realise that it has to be more of a concern to me in the future as on a number of occasions I found myself and the handler trying to fit in the tiny gap between the Dog Walk and A-Frame!!  Not ideal - another lesson for the future:-)