Clipper

On Sunday, June 6, 2010, the club was putting on an agility demonstration in a small town that was celebrating its hundredth birthday. This was Clipper's first opportunity to run a course. His part of the course was made up of nine obstacles most of them were tunnels and also included the A-frame and the teeter. He did all nine obstacles smoothly on his first attempt without a hitch. He had two more runs on the same sequence before the day was over and they also went well. This was a great start, as he was doing this in a strange place, outdoors (we practice indoors) and in front of lots of people. Then last Saturday we had a fun run at the practice arena and he had three more runs. Again he performed beautifully, staying on course all the way around. The first course was fairly simple but the second and third courses were more challenging but he handled them beautifully. These courses involved all the regular agility equipment and the only part he had difficulty with was the weaves and that is because he had never done them as part of a sequence before and so that is what we are starting to work on in our backyard sessions. Then this past Tuesday he had his first opportunity to take part in Starters house league (he missed the first one because it was the day after he was neutered). In his first run he showed that Cha Cha and Cruiser seemed to have produced another good agility dog. He ran the 14 obstacle course clean and did it in 23 seconds. The course was approximately 110 yds long and so he was moving at a little better than 4.5 yds per sec the kind of time that Sailor often gets. At this stage he is jumping with obstacles set at 10", and in competition he will be jumping 16" and so that will make a difference. However, I am thrilled that he seems to want to speed around the course like his older brother. It looks like Cruiser and Cha Cha may have produced another winner.

I intend to start competing in CPE events with him in a couple of months. They allow dogs to start competing at 15 months, and he will be 15 months old tomorrow. CPE also has three levels that you can start at, and I would start him at the lowest level which is no more difficult than the runs he has already done. I started Sailor at level 2 because he was two before I entered him in CPE events.