AGILITY TIMES THREE

Well, I now have a trio of dogs competing in agility. It used to be a duo. Gemma finally made her official competitive debut at AVID's July trial. She didn't bring home any ribbons, but then again I didn't expect her to. She still has the attention span of a gnat, so a good run for her was to make it most of the way around the course before time ran out. On her first run, she completed a grand total of one piece of equipment—but she notched visits to just about every member of the ring crew on her way around the course. On her second run, she did much better, and on her third run, she almost managed to complete the course before the buzzer sounded. On her last run, late in the day, she ran by more obstacles than she completed, but at least we kept the forward momentum going for most of the time. All in all, I was pretty proud of Gemma at her first agility trail.

Zack is still stuck in first gear, but at least doesn't seem to be backsliding any additional amount. We just still haven't found the right motivator to bring the enjoyment back to agility for him. He's happy, happy, happy and raring to go before I get him in the ring, but once there, it's like he's running through molasses. Patience. We'll figure this out, all in good time.

Abby was our agility star of the household, bringing home two Q ribbons today. It would have been three, but in her enthusiasm to complete her second Standard course, she missed her down contact on the dogwalk...a fate that has befallen her before at the second-to-last obstacle and one that I thought I had in hand as she came down the ramp. Apparently not. She also just missed a Q in her Jumpers round, missing the course time by just 98/100ths of a second. A whisker. I think that after this summer, I may drop her in to the Veterans category, to give her that little bit more time. She's had a number of those squeaker kinds of course times. She puts her little heart into her runs, and it's a shame when she misses by just that little bit.

We got to meet Carolyn Kool and her two Silkies at the trial. She hails from up Nanaimo way, and she brought KC down to compete at the trial, as well as her new puppy Bailey, who got to watch from the sidelines. Bailey is Gemma's brother (same parents, but Bailey is from the litter after Gemma's) and their faces are quite strikingly similar. Bailey, however, looks like he's headed towards silver colouring as opposed to Gemma's more golden tones. If there had been a safe place to let the two youngsters off leash to play, they would have had a blast. As it was, they did their best to be absolutely silly about each other whenever they met on-leash or through the x-pen wire. We'll undoubtedly be seeing more of Carolyn and company at other trials.