Well, I guess we are getting serious about this agility thing. June was a super slow month. The only agility trials being held were when Jenny had travel scheduled, so we missed out on running our girl. Bummed at the thought of not playing with Karma, we started searching for out of state trails that we might be able to swing.
A perfect opportunity arose when we saw there would be a trial in Utah. Initially, we thought about driving out to Sun Valley (we spent Christmas there last year and LOVED it!) for the 4th and then we could “swing” through Utah on the way back to Colorado. However, when we called Marc’s parents to see if they could meet up with us, they weren’t able to get to Sun Valley — BUT, they would fly out to Salt Lake City to watch Karma compete (they are excellent grandparents) and spend some quality time with us.
So, our plans changed a little. We spent the 4th in the Mountains and then headed over to Salt Lake to trial yesterday and today. What a great time! Dan & Lennie (Karma/Indy/Schmav’s grandparents) are so fun to hang out with. They are very easy going and so supportive. Marc was explaining that agility trials are a lot of “hurry up and wait,” you know, rush to get there to watch her run for 30 seconds and then wait around for another hour to see her next run. Dan and Lennie likened it to a track meet! Perfect descriptor! Our niece Julia is a little track star, so the Grandparents were well prepared for the day ahead of them.
Friday was an NQ day for us. Karma had moments of sheer brilliance, but Jenny made a few mistakes that cost us a qualify. But seeing how far Karma has progressed was awesome. She was reading all of Jenny’s rear crosses really well and really striding for her weaves. Super exciting.
After agility, Dan and Lennie treated us to Spencer’s in downtown Salt Lake. Dinner was wonderful and we definitely sat at the table chatting for a good hour after our plates had been cleared. It was so nice to catch up! Then it was off to bed for another early agility day!
Today was AWESOME. Karma’s first run of the day was Jumpers and she totally **SMOKED** her course. She finished in 12 seconds under SCT! (PS. If you need to learn a little bit about agility, you can click here to read OUR explanation.) This was our second AXJ leg, so Karma is knocking at that Excellent B door! Pretty exciting! Her second run of the day was Time to Beat. This was our first time competing in T2B, and it was so much fun! The course flowed really well, and Karma was super fast again! She ended up finishing in 4th or 5th place overall! This is huge! The 20” class is almost always the fastest, most competitive bunch. So proud that Karma held her own. The woman sitting next to Marc in the stands even told him that Karma was the best Vizsla she had ever seen do agility! EEK! 🙂
Her standard run was a little bit of a disaster, but Karma never stops making us smile. She blew her A-frame contact (she was *AMPED*) which was the 2nd obstacle, so we were out of the running early. Since there was no Q on the line, Jenny decided to try some “riskier” moves. One of those is a big lead out from the table — little Ms. Velcro Vizsla doesn’t like it when Mommy gets too far away. So once she got to the table, Karma was given the wait command and then Jenny moved to lead out past the next obstacle. Karma was doing great — a little concerned, but great — then she noticed the judge. Tim Pinneri was doing the table count and Karma decided he needed to be her friend. She leapt of the table doing her little wiggle walk and squish face that anyone who knows Karma loves! She walked right up wiggled her hardest, and when he didn’t bend down to pet her, she started licking his shins! We swear, that girl just doesn’t know what a stranger is. After the judge politely asked her to stop trying to bribe him, Karma headed straight back to her table and then looked at Jenny like, “Ok. Proceed.” Gosh, she cracks us up!
Here are videos of Karma’s qualifying runs:
AXJ Leg #2: http://youtu.be/zZqQ_aYUlCE
T2B Q#1 — 7 T2B points: http://youtu.be/4OtxMBxHSNU
After agility wrapped up, we spent some more quality time with Marc’s folks. This included dinner at Lenny’s (we figured that we were on a name theme having gone to Spencer’s last night) for some awesome dive Mexican food.
Tomorrow we will drive home, but we had a fun, fun, fun little Utah vacation.