Clean Run Magazine - May 2007 - 73

Your First T rial By Rick Parry Before my first agility competition I decided to briefly visit two trials. I watched several dogs at the Excellent competition level run the Standard course, talked to a few friends, and had my dog measured for his jump height. I gained a basic understanding of the trialing process, but I was completely unaware of what it really meant to attend a trial. It was only months later that I realized how much more I could have made of those pre-competition visits. One thing that did impress me about my visits was that some handlers got confused and lost on the course. The third trial I attended was the first one I competed in. I arrived that morning at the trial site exhausted. I hadn’t slept the night before because I had been so concerned about the possibility of getting lost on the course myself. I had also been concerned about the weather (late March), concerned about finding the trial location, concerned about checking in and getting the course maps. And I had been very concerned about not getting any sleep! As I had tossed and turned, my dog, Percy, had snored in his bed while lying on his back with his paws flopped over, probably dreaming about food; he kept licking his lips. Clearly, he had been mocking me. Now at the trial, I set up Percy’s crate, and went to check in to get the course maps and my exhibitor’s entry labels to stick on my coat. I studied the Novice Jumpers course for about 10 minutes, and then I heard somebody yell out “Novice Jumpers is open for walk-through.” I thought, “Oh God!” The end was coming near and all my fears were coming true; I was going to have to go into the competition ring. Scared to death I must have walked that course for 20 minutes. I kept thinking about what my instructors had told me: “Watch the more experienced handlers walk the course and try to do what they do.” I was running a fast Cardigan Welsh Corgi. The woman I was following ran Border Collies and was very experienced, so I tried to observe what she was doing. That day the small dogs ran first and Percy was about the fifth dog in the ring. When the gate steward yelled out “Percy’s on deck,” I May 07 | Clean Run was terrified. But when she told me, “Go into the ring when the current dog is on jump #10,” I reminded myself that this was only a game and I should just do my best. I relaxed a bit and put Percy in a sit-stay, took a two-jump lead-out, turned, and signaled him to start. He flew over the first three jumps and made the turn very nicely. Then I heard the bar on jump #4 go down. We just continued on the course—and he did the pinwheel nicely—I executed two front crosses, and we didn’t kick any other bars. And I didn’t get lost on the course! Looking back on that run now, it was a great first run and I should have been very proud of that first effort. But during the trial all I could remember was that we kicked a bar and we were eliminated. After the run, it was 8:15 in the morning and I had to wait until 4:30 that afternoon to get back in the ring for Novice Standard. With a lot of time on my hands in a remote location, I talked with my friends about dogs, agility, the weather, the time we were wasting waiting around, and so on. I didn’t understand that I was “wasting” my time out of ignorance. I was trying to relax, but I kept thinking about jump #4. I still think about jump #4 and all the other mistakes I’ve made, but now I try to learn from those mistakes instead of obsessing over them. What I should have been doing between runs was watching all the other dogs running that Jumpers course to see how they handled each challenge. There were some very experienced handlers at the trial that day who were running their new dogs in Novice and I missed them! As I continued trialing, I realized that there are many facets to an agility trial, and running your dog is just one of them. Working as part of the ring crew is another aspect, and I discovered that it provides a real education. My discovery began when I volunteered to work at a trial as a score runner for a Standard course. As I sat there, the timer, the scribe, and the assistant scribe started talking about the teams and their strategies on the course. They discussed how smaller dogs run courses differently than larger dogs, how 73

Clean Run Magazine - May 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - May 2007