Dog Agility

Riyo flips me the tail at doggie agility graduation day…..

This week was the last day of Riyo’s second try at beginning agility class and this time around there was no inexplicable “come-when-called-by-stranger” requirement, so he graduated! For our class graduation, they set up a full agility course and each dog had their turn on the course just like a real competition. I was completely confident that after Riyo’s stellar performance at the outdoor adoption event on Saturday, he was going to completely blow away the rest of the class.

The big dogs went first and one after another, the dogs went through the course, skipping a couple obstacles here and there, and at worst disappearing at cheetah speed into the field behind the course. I was watching the performances feeling 100% cocky because Riyo was going to cruise through that course and put them all to shame pretty soon. He’s already a pro you know.

Finally, it was our turn, very last as he is the very smallest. Saving the best for last, of course. So we go to the starting point and I take Riyo’s collar off, noticing, but ignoring his panting and generally weird expression. He was going to snap out of it in just a sec and impress everyone with his agility splendor. So, I tell him to “stay” and walk confidently past the first jump. Look at that perfect stay! This is going to be good. “Ok!” I say with all the enthusiasm I could squeak out, and here he comes for the first jump!…..and there he goes…skillfully avoiding the first jump altogether and running straight past me and the second jump. WHAT? Wait! Riyo! This is not impressing anybody. Ok, let’s recover, we can do it. “Come on Riyo!” I say in my annoyingly high pitch “I’m-going-to-convince-him-that-this-is-fun” voice. Let’s go run across the dog walk! It’ll be great! Ok, “Walk it!” And…….he goes through a tunnel instead and heads off toward his crate at the other end of the course, but we’re only half way through!

This is far from impressive. As a matter of fact, I think we’re making the cheetah dog look good at this point. I go and retrieve Riyo and skip over to the table. Ok Riyo, you can do this. “Table! Table! Table!” I’m really squeaking now. Whew, ok he’s on the table, never mind the down stay. Let’s go to the a-frame! Ok, we can redeem ourselves here. This is impressive. Little Riyo climbing the A-frame will make everyone go “OOohhh!” So “let’s go Riyo! Walk it!”….and there he goes past it and me, and over the next little jump. Train wreck. One cool obstacle left, the ring jump before the last little jump at the finish line. Please, can we at least do the ring? With all the squeaky excited puppy voice I can muster I make a try for it. “Ok Riyo let’s go, ring! Jump!” And……there he goes past me, past the ring, and straight to the last course jump at the finish line 15 feet ahead of me. He stops at the jump, hops over it, flipping me off with his tail as he went over. “I’m done, that’s it! BYE!”

How did he graduate you ask? It’s a no fail class. Everyone passes.

My intro to a USDAA Agility Trial

I have been interested in agility for quite some time and seen it on YouTube and TV a few times, but I had never attended an actual competition. The local training club here TOTC (they are the best) hosted a USDAA trial this weekend and I signed up to help work it. I sauntered in a little before 8am and the place was already buzzing. There was equipment of all sorts going up, tables of goodies, and dog crates all over the place. Even better, there was coffee, kolaches, and donuts. Jackpot.

In turn for my coffee and donuts, I was quickly assigned the job of pole setter for the Relay or “Pairs” event, and had my very own chair at the side of the arena. First lesson of the day, don’t bring coffee or any other food items onto the course. Rookie mistake one. If you spill then there’s a yummy scent to distract the dogs. Sans coffee, as pole setter your job is to run around the ring setting the pole at the height the judge yells out and if a dog knocks one over, run out and fix it. I was setting poles at 8in, 12in, 16in, 22in, and 26in, depend on the dog size of course. So itty bitty dogs ran the course, then then next size up, next size up. Every type of dog was out there from a toy something-or-other and yorkies, to border collies and a Doberman, and everything in between. Any size dog, any breed dog, and any mixed breed dog can participate. In pairs, one dog would run half the course, they’d pass the baton and the second dog would start. Dog one did jumps, tunnel, teeter totter, and weave poles and dog two did the dog walk, A-frame, and jumps.

The next round was Standard Agility, which is about the same course as Pairs except one dog runs the entire course and there is a chute in addition to the tunnel. I was assigned as chute girl. Sure! Why not? Turns out chute girl is the dog agility version of ball girl. About every 45 seconds a dog was running the course, and about every 45 seconds I was hustling onto the course to re-set the chute for the next dog. Re-setting the chute is simply straightening out the fabric exit so the next dog can get through without entanglements. The first run, I discovered quickly that timing is important. Rookie mistake number two. The judge instructed me to go to the chute and get ready to fix it as soon as the dog went through it, but before it was finished with the course. So, I get up and start sauntering over to the chute, taking my sweet time until I notice the dog was coming back my way. I almost blew that one, but fortunately I just got an amused smirk and cautionary instructions from the judge. The last thing I wanted was a mad dog handler cussing me out for ruining their run, so from that point on, I did not saunter, I hustled. Back and forth and back and forth.

YouTube video of Standard Agility run:

In case I may have been tempted to flee after chute duty, they bribed me with a ticket for free lunch and with four dogs to feed, I never pass up a free lunch! During my lunch break, I watched the beginning Jumpers, which got me all excited. I didn’t realize they had an easier course for beginner dogs and/or handlers. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to do that with Riyo? I will try. Before today I was very scared of trying an actual competition because I can imagine everything just falling apart because I or Riyo has a bad day. Now I see that falling apart is expected. It happens. You have a big noisy place full of dogs. So the worst that could happen is I just pick Riyo up and go home. Maybe in May at the next one we will star in beginners Jumpers! Though Riyo only runs this fast for dinner, one can aspire:

In payment for my “free” lunch, I went back to pole setter duty in an event called “Snooker,” which I still do not understand. Someone tried to explain the rules to me, but they lost me about 5 seconds in. There are points and flags, and some kind of pattern that I never understood. The judge is yelling out numbers as they are running and if a dog jumped over x jump instead of y jump it was bad. Again, I did not figure out why one jump this way was bad and one jump that way was good. Here’s a video of a very nice Snooker run:

Last event I did was the Advanced Jumpers. This time I was leash girl. This is a fairly simple job. The handlers remove the leash and collar from the dog before they run and chunk it in your general direction, sometimes without looking. So the only real issue is paying attention and not getting hit with a flying brass leash clip. While they run the course, in 18-30 seconds, you move the leash to a bucket at the finish line where many times the dogs proudly retrieve it themselves. The winner of that round was a border collie that finished in a little over 18 seconds.

Advanced Jumpers video:

And that ended the day of Agility and I came away with a better understanding of the sport, free meals, and a good bit of exercise. Next time, Riyo and I will be on the course!