Radical Canines

Rugby ran his first and only outdoor agility trial when he was around 2 years old. We played gamblers and really my only goals were a start line stay, take a few obstacles and that he didn’t attempt to bite anyone. He was a little wild but he met all our goals. Since then we’ve attempted to run a few courses outdoors at my aunt’s house but we haven’t had much luck. He’s been more interested in sniffing and marking than actually running. I was starting to think maybe running outside just wasn’t going to be an option for us.

Well this week was a milestone for Rugby and I. As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ve been running USDAA@home but thus far we’ve really only been able to have success at the training center which has limited us to small Snooker and Jumpers courses. It’s been fun and he’s earned his starters performance snooker and his advanced jumpers which is awesome but gamblers, relay, and standard are all on larger courses that do not fit in the training room. So when an outdoor seminar was offered I jumped on it. The seminar was meant for students who were interested in getting started with competing and included an overview of different organizations, how trials work, jump heights and measuring, and (the best part) working on running a course outside!

Rugby surprised and ran AWESOME all morning and even did his weave poles outside for the first time. SO EXCITING! Anyway after the seminar ended, I decided to go ahead and try the P1 standard courses and we got through them without much issue at all! We’re still waiting on results but barring any screw ups in setting the course or numbering I believe we may have earned our first standard Q! We have plenty of work to do still but its exciting to have our first outdoor Q.