Astro's Second AKC Agility Trial

Astro's Novice Standard Agility title ribbon.  Our first AKC agility title.  He's such a cutie.

Astro and I went to the Superstition Kennel Club agility trial the weekend of November 10 and 11.  We were entered in Standard and Jumpers both days.  The trial was in Tempe, AZ.  The weather was cool that weekend and I actually had to wear a sweatshirt all day.  This made for a spunky puppy for our early morning runs.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the trial.  Astro did a great job though and it was a really fun weekend.

Always givin' kisses.

On Sunday we had our third qualifying run in Standard and completed our Novice Standard Agility title.  It was a really nice run.  Our only mistake was that Astro went past the Table before he hopped up, a 5 point deduction.  He also had an Astro moment when all of a sudden he thought he might go say "Hi" to a dog that was sitting calmly on the other side of the ring fence.  Luckily it was only a short distance and he came right back. 

Nice Photobomb Zephyr!  Enlarge photo for the full effect.  :-)

I never thought that we would finish a novice title in only two trials.  I'm so happy with how well Astro is doing, especially with staying focused on me and agility in new locations.  I know we still to to improve in many areas, but I think we can do it.

We also had our first qualifying run in Jumpers with Weaves on Saturday.  I was really happy with this as Jumpers has been a little harder for us.  It was a fun run.  I'm not sure if I'll move us up to the Standard Open class in our next trial.  We will still be in novice for everything else and that can cause ring time conflicts, which would cause some unneeded stress.  I also wouldn't mind having some time for use to gain confidence and smooth things out a bit more before moving up.

"That's what you get for going to trials and taking pictures without me!"

In my defense of "Poor Zephyr" in his Photobomb, I actually intended to take ribbon pictures with both Zephyr and Astro as I'm convinced that Zephyr gives Astro private training while I'm at work each day.  ;-)  However, they could not maintain any self control and bounced around wrestling and generally behaved like the little beasties that they are, preventing any decent photo's from being taken.  :-)  So, Zephyr had to go into the pool area.  In typical Zephyr fashion he couldn't let us forget about him.  But, who would want to?