Dylan was born on 24/11/09, so was ready for agility training about Oct 2010 when he was 11 months. I bought Dylan with agility (and canoeing) in mind, so started at obedience classes when he was 10 weeks old. I told John (Club FALDO) that I wanted to do agility so what should I teach him. Wait and getting Dylan to listen to me was the answer. Every week we went to obedience class and longed to start agility training. In Oct 2010 John informed me he had a starter course starting on Tuesday nights in Barton-le-Clay – did we want to come – Yes please!!
To compete (which I wanted to do) I needed to register Dylan with the Kennel Club for agility as obviously he isn’t a pedigree! I also needed a Kennel Club Agility Record Book, which I was able to buy from John at the club. So on 9th April 2011 I went along to a KC show at Shuttleworth to get Dylan measured. He was 15 months old (the youngest they can be measured) and so he was declared as medium. Dylan will need measuring again 12 months after his first measure but before 24 months afterwards.
Training was going well, although the weaves were still difficult. However we were ready to compete. Advice from Jackie (my trainer) suggested that the BATS show at Luton would be a great first show, but unfortunately Dylan would quite be 18 months then (2 days off!), so we registered for the JDA show at Shuttleworth on 1st June 2011. It was overwhelming as there were so many rings, but I had lots of encouragement from club members and we competed in eight runs over two days and went clear in three of those. We had won the Medium Jumping Combined Grade 1-2 (meaning grade 1 & 2 compete against each other) much to my surprise!
From there we competed in at least one competition each month through the summer. Dylan got used to the show ring and wasn’t always well behaved. We had bucket incidents at a number of shows! He had worked out that buckets were exciting because often his lead was there. Jackie included buckets in training and I would ask that any buckets were hidden during show runs. He’s okay now!!
Some shows I attended we camped at (use for my Mazda Bongo campervan came into its own!), met loads of lovely people and watched loads of much better than us dogs and handlers. We got another win at the KC International Show on 14th August 2011 in a jumping class.
With 2 jumping clear round wins we only need 1 more jumping win (clear) to be promoted to Grade 2 or an agility win with a clear round. We have had an agility win at Rugby on 10th Dec 2011, but we had 10 faults so although we got a rosette and a trophy we didn’t gain promotion!
Throughout the winter we have competed at an independent show at Keysoe run by Barking Mad. Each month we had a day of runs, 1 jumping and 1 agility run were qualifiers for the final in March. We won either jumping or agility each month and often did well in the other runs too. Being top of the Grade 1-2 medium dogs we were in the final in March 2012. That day despite winning an agility run and a jumping run, the excitement of the final was too much and 1 made an error so 5 faults meant we didn’t win!
So our first KC agility show of 2012 loomed ... Dog Vegas in Grantham. We had 4 runs to look forward to. First a jumping round which only had 13 obstacles. It was over so quick ... were we quick enough? No beaten by 0.2 seconds into second place. Next an agility run ... we were clear & fast ... our first KC agility win ... our promotion win. We went on to win the next agility run as well and were eliminated from the third!! 25 days needs to pass after “winning out” of one grade to the next. We were at Dog Vegas in Winterton, Lincolnshire for 5 days over Easter, winning 3 agilities and 3 jumping rounds; all at Grade 1.
Our first Grade 2 competition was at Shuttleworth over the weekend of 14/15th April (a full year since Dylan’s first measure). Saturday saw 3 clear rounds and 3 places including a jumping win ... on the road to the next promotion.
I am looking forward to lots of KC shows throughout 2012 and hopefully we can find a clear win or two to gain promotions through the grades. We make sure we go to training every week, and anything I don’t understand in the competitions I will draw to show my trainer who helps me work out a strategy to achieve. We have loads more to learn but we have made great progress so far.
To compete (which I wanted to do) I needed to register Dylan with the Kennel Club for agility as obviously he isn’t a pedigree! I also needed a Kennel Club Agility Record Book, which I was able to buy from John at the club. So on 9th April 2011 I went along to a KC show at Shuttleworth to get Dylan measured. He was 15 months old (the youngest they can be measured) and so he was declared as medium. Dylan will need measuring again 12 months after his first measure but before 24 months afterwards.
Training was going well, although the weaves were still difficult. However we were ready to compete. Advice from Jackie (my trainer) suggested that the BATS show at Luton would be a great first show, but unfortunately Dylan would quite be 18 months then (2 days off!), so we registered for the JDA show at Shuttleworth on 1st June 2011. It was overwhelming as there were so many rings, but I had lots of encouragement from club members and we competed in eight runs over two days and went clear in three of those. We had won the Medium Jumping Combined Grade 1-2 (meaning grade 1 & 2 compete against each other) much to my surprise!
From there we competed in at least one competition each month through the summer. Dylan got used to the show ring and wasn’t always well behaved. We had bucket incidents at a number of shows! He had worked out that buckets were exciting because often his lead was there. Jackie included buckets in training and I would ask that any buckets were hidden during show runs. He’s okay now!!
Some shows I attended we camped at (use for my Mazda Bongo campervan came into its own!), met loads of lovely people and watched loads of much better than us dogs and handlers. We got another win at the KC International Show on 14th August 2011 in a jumping class.
With 2 jumping clear round wins we only need 1 more jumping win (clear) to be promoted to Grade 2 or an agility win with a clear round. We have had an agility win at Rugby on 10th Dec 2011, but we had 10 faults so although we got a rosette and a trophy we didn’t gain promotion!
Throughout the winter we have competed at an independent show at Keysoe run by Barking Mad. Each month we had a day of runs, 1 jumping and 1 agility run were qualifiers for the final in March. We won either jumping or agility each month and often did well in the other runs too. Being top of the Grade 1-2 medium dogs we were in the final in March 2012. That day despite winning an agility run and a jumping run, the excitement of the final was too much and 1 made an error so 5 faults meant we didn’t win!
So our first KC agility show of 2012 loomed ... Dog Vegas in Grantham. We had 4 runs to look forward to. First a jumping round which only had 13 obstacles. It was over so quick ... were we quick enough? No beaten by 0.2 seconds into second place. Next an agility run ... we were clear & fast ... our first KC agility win ... our promotion win. We went on to win the next agility run as well and were eliminated from the third!! 25 days needs to pass after “winning out” of one grade to the next. We were at Dog Vegas in Winterton, Lincolnshire for 5 days over Easter, winning 3 agilities and 3 jumping rounds; all at Grade 1.
Our first Grade 2 competition was at Shuttleworth over the weekend of 14/15th April (a full year since Dylan’s first measure). Saturday saw 3 clear rounds and 3 places including a jumping win ... on the road to the next promotion.
I am looking forward to lots of KC shows throughout 2012 and hopefully we can find a clear win or two to gain promotions through the grades. We make sure we go to training every week, and anything I don’t understand in the competitions I will draw to show my trainer who helps me work out a strategy to achieve. We have loads more to learn but we have made great progress so far.
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