First competition in A2 class

TAKO agility competition with one jumpingcourse and two agilitycourses. Judge was Inga Järv and she made very good A2 courses. For us, I would say, it was pretty good competition, despite that we demolished twice the tyre hoop. Speed was OK, but we can improve quite a lot. Some turns were slow, because I was too close by to the obstacles and late with verbal orders. Contacts are still a problem, but they are getting better and faster. I just need to be more confident and release Erk faster, at least from A-frame. This time we got 10 points from jumping course and from second agility course and 5 points from first agilitycourse. So we are not far from clean runs :)

Erk at Heimtali, three A1 agility courses and transfering into A2

We did two clean runs and had one DSQ. One course, where we were disqualified was just too difficult for A1, specially for fast dogs.

We got our first clean run!!!

We had marvellous day at Maardu. First run didn't go so well (DSQ), because Erk jumped over the A-frame and landed only with two paws on the back side. Also he was so eager to compete, that jumped "on top of" the first hurdle, not over it. Other than these two mentioned things, everything went well on the first course. Second course was our best achievement ever and we didn't make a mistake. For that, clean run and first place. Third course, the jumping course, didn't go so well, because I ran too sharply to the slalom and Erk missed the first gap, so I called him back and we ran it again. We dropped one hurdle also.

Erk at Heimtali, running A1 and Open courses

We took part in ViLe agility exam on 6th of december at Heimtali horse manege. The judge was Svetlana Zolotnikova and we ran three A1 courses and 2 Open courses. It went a bit better that TaKo competition, but we still didn't get clean run in our official courses. The last Open course (agility) was the best, because we didn't make any mistakes and had a clean run. Unfortunately this does not count in official statistics.
Special thanks to two people for our A1 videos (the one who filmed our runs and the other who sent us the videos)

Our first competition in official class, A1

We took part in our first official competition in class A1, but first we ran two beginners courses (A0). In first one we got disqualified, because of my fault, but second course was clean and our time was second fastest.
In both classes, the judge and course designer was Anne Tammiksalu. She had very strict rules already in A0 (no treats, toys, no helper in the start) and quite difficult courses in A0 and A1. For our first competition in official class, I hoped a bit easier course and many competitors were suprised about the difficulty level of A1. But we have to start somewhere and this time it went like that.
In A1 we got disqualified twice (1st and 3rd run) and in second run we got 10 points. At least we finished one course.

Erk at International Dog Show in Tartu 8.11.2014

On 8th of November we went to our first International dog show and overall to our second show.
First one was National show, near Tartu (Ülenurme). This time we wanted to get at least "good" qualification or grade and we got "very good". That's fine for us (for agility), but I hoped that we will get again "excellent" grade and maybe we are even nominated to sertificate candidate, because we were the only male junior border collie, but noooo. We are too sporty and lively to be good dog show material. (Below is picture of our evaluation paper)
This time I asked our agilitytrainer Stefi to show Erk, because I was a bit afraid, that Erk will act grazy and do some stupid stuff with me. Usually lies down in a show ring and starts to stare other dogs.
Thank you Stefi :) 

The judge was from Belgium, Dirk Spruyt.

After the show I looked why Erk was acting weird and twitching, sometimes even whimpered when someone touched his hind legs, and found that he had broken one nail. Probably from our last training.

Erk's second agility competition. A0, Tartu

Saturday 1. November 2014, Location Tartu. Judge Marjo Heino from Finland.
In the first run (course) we had one mistake at the last obstacle and for that 5th place, but overall we had the best time. In the second run (course) we had again one mistake. This time it was the first obstacle and we got 6th place because of that and overall second best time.
Taken two runs together we were 6th with 10 points (5+5).

Erk A0 course in Viljandi

Erk's first competition! Tunnels

Viljandi, September 7th.