TitleMania: The Agility!

This post is part of a series about our 2016 USDAA TitleMania experience.   Click here for an overview of the event.  Click here for the Rally World Championships.  Click here for 15 year old Blaze at the dog beach. 

Agility

We did 3 rounds each of standard, jumpers, snooker and gamblers. On Sunday we also chose to enter the Masters Challenge Standard and MC Jumpers.

Other than the MC classes we were in Starters (P1) or Advanced (P2). Unlike a normal USDAA trial, we were allowed to enter higher than where we are at – and we’ll get to count those legs once we’re at that lever. For the most part, the courses we ran were great. There were a few times where we saw interesting things – and on most of those courses the judges made polite comments about that not being typical for the level.  

Facility

The facility was huge! We were told we would have air conditioning and wi-fi. The AC didn’t really work well in the big room where the rings were, but it was comfortable in the crating rooms and bathroom. The facility did a good job of bringing in big fans, tubs of ice water, and hooking up hose outdoors.  

There were some rumors that it’s never cool in the big room …  so who knows. I didn’t mind too much, it wasn’t the most comfortable and sometimes it was cooler outside, but really it was like an outdoor trial (space! footing!) but with constant shade and without the turf or equipment getting hot.  The wi-fi was a problem, I intended to do work but I didn’t have as much time as I expected anyways.  I thought the footing was great, I saw very few situations with dogs slipping  – and that may have been about course design more than anything else.

Trial

I loved the judges – they did such a great over the four days and were so happy and cooperative. They did get a little wilted by the end – but that’s understandable, 4 days is a long time! They were so nice to explain to teams where errors happened (snooker!) when people got a puzzled look.

Unlike a normal trial I didn’t feel rushed to get in and out of the ring, the gate stewards did a wonderful job of handling ring conflicts and yet staying organized. The facility had some paid youth and some community volunteers. Brand new people learning to build courses! Set bars! Gate steward!  I’m aware that there were a few challenges with this – but my experiences were great.  

I left wanting to get a “real” (normal hours!) job and being able to go to trials every weekend.

Posts to come:  Rally!  Our experiences/results! The dog beach!