18 and Finally Legal

HAH! Today is March 23 and beanie baby aka Riot is turning a legal age: 18 months.
It is the earliest that USDAA (and most other venues) dogs can start competing in trials.
AKC allows them to start at only 15 months and although in my opinion that seems a bit early, I am beyond belief how fast this little border staffy matured and how agility has totally clicked for her. By last weekend she has already two AKC trials under her little feet and flawless runs. She's now one Open leg away from moving up to the Excellent level and running with the 'big dogs', like her sister Banshee.
Why am I so anxious to be in Excellent?
While novice courses have indeed gotten significantly more difficult over the years, they are still an open race track, requiring very minimal handling; and AKC's 6 weave poles are a totally ridiculous notion of fooling a competitor into believing that their dog can weave.
In my opinion, if you have to guide your dog by the nose through five openings between six sticks, your dog has no clue how to weave. Take the time and teach independent obstacle performance, just as you would expect a dog to go through a tunnel by itself without the handler having to crawl into the other end to pull the dog through.
Riot and I have spent a lot of time learning our respective positions between jumps. While I expect her to understand (which I taught) how to jump, turn, collect and accelerate, it is up to me to indicate all that to her while on the course.
This team work really shows on courses that require a lot more mutual communication, i.e. at higher levels.
I feel we have that connection, I feel that while we are still learning each other, we are doing it together; not me trying to adjust to her, not Riot trying to figure out what the hell I want.
Although we both need to learn more skills together, the basic skills we already have certainly allow us to work as a team to conquer a course. The fine tuning is part of the fun.

Several people asked me why we didn't do any Standard runs.
The agility skills Riot currently has, do not allow us to enter any Standard courses.
While I dabbled in FAST (where you can make up your own course really) to test her teeter and running dog walk skills, I have not yet seen the satisfying performance on either of the obstacles.
Not to mention the A-frame, which will be a beast of its own to perfect.
Other obstacles that Riot still needs to train on (even though she can complete them) are chute, tire and the broad jump. I feel more training on those is necessary to have a safe, confident and fast performance at trials.

Not to be outdone, Banshee laid down quite the performance this last AKC trial. A couple mis-communications kept us from getting more than 1 Double Q this weekend, however I have to say that this girl still got it in her.
I am almost seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as we are 3/4 of the way to the MACH. Now if I keep on entering AKC trials this year, it might happen this summer. It also means we are now half way to qualifying for the AKC Nationals and if the rumors are true, they are moving west next year and if the real underground rumors are true, they might be in Reno. What a treat that would be for Banshee to finish her AKC career with her running in a National event.

This last trial hosted by the Group IV Terrier club in Farmington was truly a girls weekend out. I had only brought Banshee and Riot and the three of us spent a very fulfilling three days together, despite the snow and rain and mud.

Winter trials are such a tease. I want to get out and train and all we get is more snow, just when you think we are done with it and there is a glimmer of hope that I could actually pull out my agility equipment again.