The last week of September, we went against the best ...
agility dogs in the NADAC North American Championships. We had our plan, Breeze and I, to show those border collies what a golden retriever could do. All we had to do was have perfect runs to offset their acceleration, speed and turning abilities.
Well, we were darn near perfect - no faults through all 8 rounds. We did have a wide turn here and a slow weaves there. But, golly was she good.
We finished fourth, by 6 seconds, in our division; beaten by two border collies and a border collie mixed breed. (There were lots of border collies that finished behind us.)
Here is a video of one of our runs. This is not a normal course - at the NADAC championships, there has always been a non-standard course designed for speed. This course had no contacts, no weaves, no jumps - just hoops and tunnels. The idea is to make it around the course as fast as you can. Oh! but there was one restriction - the judges pictured the course as having a 3-foot wide sidewalk between each obstacle. The dogs had to stay on the "sidewalk." A 1-point fault was accessed for every stride off the "sidewalk." Also a 1-point penalty was accessed for any spins the dogs made. (Note: the runs were videoed and the videos were used in judging the dogs paths.)
Click on picture to open a page with the video.
There has to be a lot of trust between the dog and the handler. And it is a two-way street. In the video, you can see Breeze look at me just before the third tunnel. It was as if she knew I wanted to race behind her to get to the other side of the "sidewalk" and she was telling me to go. Almost all of the handlers wanted to make the same cross. Most handlers did not attempt it. Of those that did, many drug their dogs into the wrong end of the tunnel. By the way, the reason the handlers wanted the cross was not to handle the turn at the top going into the next tunnel, it was to handle the turn coming out of that tunnel.
What a great week we had and I'm so proud of my girl. (Hands down, she won the high scoring golden retriever award.)
Tom
Well, we were darn near perfect - no faults through all 8 rounds. We did have a wide turn here and a slow weaves there. But, golly was she good.
We finished fourth, by 6 seconds, in our division; beaten by two border collies and a border collie mixed breed. (There were lots of border collies that finished behind us.)
Here is a video of one of our runs. This is not a normal course - at the NADAC championships, there has always been a non-standard course designed for speed. This course had no contacts, no weaves, no jumps - just hoops and tunnels. The idea is to make it around the course as fast as you can. Oh! but there was one restriction - the judges pictured the course as having a 3-foot wide sidewalk between each obstacle. The dogs had to stay on the "sidewalk." A 1-point fault was accessed for every stride off the "sidewalk." Also a 1-point penalty was accessed for any spins the dogs made. (Note: the runs were videoed and the videos were used in judging the dogs paths.)
Click on picture to open a page with the video.
There has to be a lot of trust between the dog and the handler. And it is a two-way street. In the video, you can see Breeze look at me just before the third tunnel. It was as if she knew I wanted to race behind her to get to the other side of the "sidewalk" and she was telling me to go. Almost all of the handlers wanted to make the same cross. Most handlers did not attempt it. Of those that did, many drug their dogs into the wrong end of the tunnel. By the way, the reason the handlers wanted the cross was not to handle the turn at the top going into the next tunnel, it was to handle the turn coming out of that tunnel.
What a great week we had and I'm so proud of my girl. (Hands down, she won the high scoring golden retriever award.)
Tom
