Courses - Columbia, SC Saturday

Saturday had me judging Standard and Excellent FAST.

The Standard course is a take-off of the course from the original judge with a few modifications to accommodate my short legs. Here's a break down on how the course ran:

Obstacles 1-3 were an easy no-brainer for these handlers. However, things weren't as smooth from the a-frame into the weaves. Several factors came into play. First, those with a running contact who were hell bent on getting in front of their dog at the bottom of the a-frame generally succeeded in increasing their dog's speed to the off-course #8 jump. Most handlers were able to call their dog's off of the incorrect jump, but were then left with an odd angle over the #4 jump which had the dog heading to the #10 jump and not directly to the weaves.

Obstacles #5 - 8 were straight forward with the dog on the handlers' right hand side. Quite a few dogs went up the a-frame rather than pull in toward the #9 jump. In most cases, the handler assumed the dog would come in toward them and it was too late once they realized their dog was heading straight for the a-frame.

The line from #10 through to the teeter was beautiful and ran very smooth.

The area that caused most handlers a degree of difficulty was the #15 jump. The majority of handlers had their dog on their left side and planned to rear cross this jump. However since the dog was coming off of the table, handlers were ahead of their dog and their timing was off for a rear cross. Quite a few of the handlers turned in to their dog early and caused their dog to turn left prior to taking the jump which incurred a refusal.

The remainder of the course went smooth and while the #18 jump caught a few teams off guard, most finished this course beautifully.

Next was the Excellent FAST course.

This was a fun little FAST course that had dogs moving around the entire ring and potentially accumulating a lot of points.

Better yet, the send bonus was very do-able for this group and they did a lovely job.

Great job everyone!