And then today I had the excitement of our first agility trial in England, a UKA trial. Like in Aus, while The Kennel Club is the main trialling body, there are other agility organisations with their own rules and competitions. UKA being one of the larger of those, run by Greg & Laura Derret.
UKA has 4 levels (grades) of progression.. Beginner, Novice, Senior, and Championship. They also have a Casual grade which is run at a height lower than the dogs usual height, and while competitive does not count towards progression.
Likewise they have 4 heights.. Toy 300mm (shoulder height <350), Midi 400mm (<430), Standard 550mm (<500), Maxi 650mm (any height of dog).
There are agility, jumpers, steeplechase, and games classes. Like with KC agility progression in agility, jumpers, and games are tied in together (ie if you go up to the next level in agility you also go up in jumpers). I think progression in steeplechase is seperate though.
Unlike KC classes, progression through UKA is mainly based on points. By far the most points are earnt for 1st places, but you dont need to win to go up a level, especially the more consistant dogs.
So today we turned up to the trial not knowing what to expect, but had a fantastic time. The trial was smaller than the KC agility shows I had visited..having only 6 rings running!!! Not many at all..
The courses werent too different to what would be expected in the corresponding levels in aus. Steeplechase involved a course of just jumps & flexi tunnels. There are weavers in jumpers, but an optional number, and all the courses I ran today only had 6 poles. There are no tables in agility classes over here, but the seesaw is in all levels. With snooker there is a start & finish jump, ie you have to take that jump before starting the opening sequence and after finishing the closing. And refusal are counted in snooker here.
I had Tooheys entered in Beginners agility, jumpers, steeplechase & snooker and Hollie in Casual agility & jumping. However dogs have to be measured on the day of their first trial, and somehow (?!) Hollie measured as Midi meaning she only has to jump 400mm. The club was quite flexible allowing on the day changes so I switched her entries from Casual to Beginners, and also put her in steeplechase. Unfortunately beginners snooker has already been run by the time she was measured, and that was the class I really wanted to run her in.
We had varied success today, but in general the dogs ran well it was me that stuffed them up.
* Agility - Tooheys had a beautiful round, especially given that agility is usually our weakest class where he likes to argue with me, but he knocked one pole. It was a shame as he had the fastest time in the class, but he still got 3rd. And I'm happy knowing that he is fast enough to be at least a little competitive in the lower classes, and have some chance of progressing.
Hollie ran a good round only to have me pull her off a jump. Her speed wasnt as fast as it could be though.
* Jumping - I caused Tooheys to get E'd by pulling him off a jump and then causing him to back jump it, but it wasnt the tidiest round anyway..he blew his start line (and he had been so good lately!) and gave me some argument because I was then out of position.
Hollie on the other hand had a lovely clear round & got 4th place.
* Steeplechase - All I can say is both dogs needed a new handler!! I sent Tooheys over a wrong jump, and pulled Hollie off a tunnel entrance before she had commited.
* Snooker - I really wasnt looking forward to running Tooheys in snooker as when he has no direction on a course he gets silly, but he suprised me. He got maximum points in the opening sequence, but in the closing sequence came blasting out of a tunnel & missed the entrance to the weaves (no 6). Bearing in mind that refusals count we had to go straight to the finish jump. He still managed to get 4th place though.
Now looking forward to my first KC show in a few weeks to compare....
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