After the Estonian Championship and Kuressaare agility competition in Saaremaa, the next big two day event took place in Viljandi on 5th and 6th of September. I enjoyed that weekend very much and I'm sure that Erk also did. We ran 3 courses on Saturday evening and 2 courses on Sunday morning. Judge was Blaž Oven from Slovenia, who made quite difficult courses, but they were doable if you can handle yourself and the dog. I'm not too confident jet and my bodylanguage needs improving, so that Erk listens and sees where I'm sending him.
About the competition I can say that we had ups and downs, mostly downs. On Saturday it was raining like it was monsoon and the football field where the competion was held was untended. The school had forgotten to mow the lawn. Anyway, on the first course we were 6th with 5 points. Second course like a regular thing DSQ and third jumping course 12th with 10 points. The times were not so good compared to the top dogs like Süsi, Lista, Tuffy, Ettie.
On Sunday there's nothing much to say because we got both courses DSQ and I was responsible for both of them. I just guided Erk to wrong places. Stupid me.
We have the first course on video thanks to Mariann. There you can see how clumsy and controlling I'm.
Some pictures by Martti Vaidla from the competition.
It has been quite a long time since I have written anything here. I try to make an overview what we have done in this summer (2015).
So, in May we transvered to A3 level and started competing with the best Estonian agilityhandlers/dogs. Our first competition where we went was in Pärnu (Tahkuranna), 27th-28th of June; judge Svetlana Zolotnikova. It was two day event, but I only took part on one day in three courses. Unfortunately I don't have any videos from that competition, because noone filmed our runs. Maybe it's even better that way, so noone could see our mistakes : )
Anyway it didn't go so bad and we even would have won our first official A3 course run if I hadn't fell and Erk missed a tunnel (5 points, for refusal). I forgot to change my shoes and ran with smooth shoes and not with football shoes. Still we got 4th place and our time was fastest. Second run we got DSQ right at the beginning (3rd obstacle) and in third run we demolished the course (took 3 bars down) and were last with 15 points. Dispite that, our time was 3rd fastest. Overall I was a bit dissapointed that we didn't get on the podium, but I have to take in to account, that we are still beginners at this level.
Next time I couldn't manage to go to the competition, because I was at work and Helen took Erk to Saaremaa, where there was AgilityPaw 2015; judge Rene Blank. Our coach Stefi ran two courses with Erk: a jumping course and an agility course. As I understood, Erk was totally mad in the runs. In the first course he got 20 points and in the other DSQ. From that competion we have even videos. I would say that Erk was much faster and better with Stefi than with me.
Then there was our own club "Säde" competition in Lohkva on 18th of July; again judge was from Norway, Jan Egil Eide. I liked those courses very much even though we had minor mistakes and in one course DSQ.
Erk in action (part time flying dog) and sometimes he even gets over the longjump, like in this case. (photo by Martti Vaidla)
I have two runs (courses) on video, so you can judge yourself. On jumping course we got 5 points and in one agility course also 5 points. In the last mentioned course we had the best time, almost 2 seconds better than the next dog. Sadly we dropped a bar and possibly lost a chance to get the first place.
Going forward with our agility journey I have to mention, that there are so many competitions that you just have no time to rest. Basically every weekend there's an agility event in some part of Estonia. Eventually you can't make it and need a break from all of this. After the "Säde" competition, we did that, and took a longer period off (about 2-3 weeks) from everything. So the next place where we competed on the 8th of August was our well known Jõulumäe Sports Center (Pärnu) with its excellent football field. It was very interesting to see how will we do after the vacation break. I thought that Erk will demolish the course, because he is so eager and wants to run and probably doesn't remember most of the orders that we have learned. Anyhow it wasn't so bad, just a bit of poor/sloppy leading and one over excited dog made all together one 3rd place on the podium. That was our first time in A3 when we got to the podium. Happy-happy-happy, but a bit dissapointed, that the mistake was probably in slalom and we lost quite a lot of time there. To sum it up, we ran 4 courses in Jõulumäe. In one agility course we got DSQ, in one we had 15 points and were last (still the time was 5th fastest), in third agility course where we got our podium place, we had 5 points (time was 3rd fastest). In jumping course that was actually the first run, we had also 5 points (don't remember what mistake we made)and overall 8th place, but Erk's time was still 3rd fastest. Unfortunately no videos from that competition.
Of course I have to mention that the judge Minna Räsänen (FI) made very interesting first course (jumping course) with various bar heights from 50-60cm (or even to 65, don't remember anymore).
Waiting... or not..., Erk watches other dogs competing and slowly crawling closer to the field. He is just so eager to run. (Photo made by Rainer Olbri a.k.a."Metsakutsu" or Ülli Saar, don't exactly know. THANK YOU for the beautiful picture)
Continuing with the story, we went to Saaremaa where they held this year's Estonian Agility Championships (22.08.15). It was very big event and lots of dogs. Of course there was a regular competiton also (22nd and 23rd of August), because championship's have only two courses and times added together. So, after the championships they started with the Kuressaare agility competitions and we had one course on 22nd of August and 3 courses on the 23rd of August. Also they had one stage of 2015 Tunnel Cup, where we could run 2 tunnel courses. To combine the two days, we ran all together 8 courses. It was our biggest competition ever and the weather was hot (for the dogs and humans).
.....
We had an excellent competion at our homefield Lohkva. Two clean runs and one almost (just 10 points). Jugde Peter Holmberg from Norway had prepared fast courses with thight turns. And what's most important, we moved to A3.
Our third competion in A2 class took us near Pärnu. It was 2.-3. of May at Jõulumäe. On the first day I just helped the organizers and took a long walk in the woods. On the second day I competed and also helped afterwards.
Courses were done by judge Svetlana Kreslina. Altogether we had one DSQ, one 5'er and the jumping course was clean. Now we are one clean run away from class A3. Unfortunately no videos this time, because people forgot to charge their cameras or had bad cellphones.
Our second competion in A2 class and the judge was Magnus Andkvist from Sweden. Quite fast courses with long streches and hand switching had to be perfect. We made some silly mistakes, but overall won all three courses and one agility course was a clean run. So one step closer to A3.
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 :)
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.
