Boston Club Courses Friday 1-1-10

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when they asked us to judge as I seemed to have recalled a previous member who didn't seem so keen on me. Turns out that person is no longer a member and I'm so glad we accepted the assignment as this club was WONDERFUL!

During our judge's dinner, I learned that about 5 years back the core club members folks didn't know a thing about agility. Not so any more! These days they're now experts and work very hard to put on a great trial.

I have to say, this was one of my personal favorites on the local front and I expect we'll be attending this show from now on.

On to the course analysis...

On Friday, I judged Excellent FAST (course pictured below) and Excellent JWW. Dan judged Excellent Standard (not included - sorry!).

The majority of the course was straight forward, however, two parts seemed to be the 'make it' or 'break it' section for handlers.

The first area was between #7 - #9 and I've drawn a few lines for illustrative purposes.

The majority of handlers stayed to the right of #8 and #9 (see the blue line which represents the handler path) and treated this section as a serpentine. In theory, this would be a good choice. However, as seen by the red line (which represents the dog's path) dogs came into this sequence at full speed and the triple encouraged dogs to land long. Due to their speed and landing area, most dogs were unable to collect and come in on the handler's left side and instead went wide behind the handler. Sure, most dogs were able to get back into place, but this left some of the handlers having to scramble for a moment to readjust their dog or themselves. It was an interesting line that is worthy of a training sequence!

An alternate method was to do a front cross on the landing side of the triple and either a rear cross or another front cross between 8 and 9.

It was a fun course to run and the teams did a terrific job!