State Trial

Then it was onto the state trial. My aim for both dogs was to get them into at least 1 final, preferably 2 for Terra. Our state trial runs 2 qualifying heats, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and then if you qualify to get into the finals they are on Sunday afternoon. It is our most prestigious trial this year since we dont have the nationals. This year so the first time we were qualifying using a 'points' system, which gave points for qualifying and placing, and the two trials were combined. There was quite a lot of concern about this, especially from the people with fast dogs, but interestingly all the dogs in the finals were very similar to previous years. I guess whichever system you use the dogs that deserve to be in the finals will be there!





Shim had 2 nice runs in NJ, to come 2nd twice to an extremely experienced novice dog. She had a near miss in NA on Saturday, and the course on Sunday was too hard for her. So she got into the NJ finals! She tried in the finals but I lost her off course. Was very pleased with the way she ran, and even more pleased that she is enjoying her agility so much. I had lots of comments about her 'smiling' on the start line and through the course. Love my baby dog!


Vids below:
Hmm blogger doesnt seem to be letting me copy in the embedment anymore.. dont know why! Will have to put the vids in a separate post

Terra had a good states, if not quite as good as last year (where she won MA OA and OJ).
She won both MA qualifying heats, the 1st OJ heat and the 2nd MJ heat. She got into all 4 finals.
She was a little asleep and tired for the 1st final- MA and came 2nd after a slow start by 0.4 of a second. She is not used to doing so many runs on the one day anymore! I woke her up with some tugging (and nearly lost my arm :P) and she had an absolutely super MJ run to claim the title of Masters Jumping State Winner 2011. In OA and OJ I *really* pushed, for fun, and caused some errors, oops :) Very very pleased with the Terra-Bear, she really never fails to come through, what a dog!