My first agility trial running in performance class in USDAA!

What does a dog do after he gets his ADCH title in USDAA? Why, he moves to PIII (Performance Level) of course.

On our journey to get that last Super Q for our ADCH, Mum thought often about giving it up and moving me to performance. For a nearly 10 year old dog, sometimes I showed what years of injuries can do to a dog.

But she never gave up on me and saw that I still had moments of greatness in me (yes, I said greatness, because sometimes, well I do!). And that last snooker run for our ADCH was the most memorable, fast, fun run of my life. The very best way to end a championship level career.

I still love to run agility. As a matter of fact, Mum sees that I become quite a little pill if I don't get in some agility. No I don't run three weekends out of the year like I did when I was younger and not injured. But I still like my three runs a day, maybe every other month or so.

So we entered our first agility trial back in April, and Mum entered me in PIII. The neat thing is that she entered me in three runs a day for two days. Oh yeah! I was ready willing and able.

The second neat part is that instead of just running snooker, I got to run other events too that I don't believe I've run in maybe oh, 5-6 years? Yep that's right...I got to run standard and jumpers which I haven't run since 2008 and Gamblers which I haven't run since 2012 when I got that last one for the ADCH.

So we were in for some fun!

Patti and Stuart Mah were at the trial and we had a nice little discussion about how the standard and jumpers courses have changed over the years. It just so happened that my first run was jumpers, which I hadn't seen much of a change for this course (or the standard course) as compared to courses from back in 2008. That's not to say that we won't see some newer challenges coming up, I'm sure. Looking forward to finding out.

My first run, jumpers, was fun. Mum seemed a bit discombobulated, however, and she did a few front crosses and got in my way. (She's a little rusty on those FC's) We missed the line and I missed a jump, but it was fun, and pretty fast, and a good way to start the weekend.

Our next run was snooker. We've done a lot of those over the years, but there are a couple of changes moving me to PIII. The first change is that I have more time (about 2 extra seconds for this run) and since I'm jumping 12" now, I could be faster. But Mum planned out a good course that would give us 50 points, which we thought would be a good fit for me, I should make it through, and we'd have a good shot at a SQ.

We started with the red at the right bottom, did a 6, left bottom red, 5, top right red, 4, top left red, 4 and then the close.

Well, what do you know it was another super good snooker run for me. Even Stuart came up and told us what a good run it was! He also said, 'you know you had a lot of time left, don't you?' Ha!!! Well turned out we got that SQ, 50 points in 42.86 seconds and had 8.14 seconds left. Hmmm....guess Mum is going to have to rethink our timing, huh?

Later it was time for standard. Mum and I were looking forward to this too. We didn't see much difference from the courses we experienced back years ago. But again, we expect to!

It was a fun little course. And I have to say it was fun having all the challenges of all the obstacles thrown at me again. I like versatility. I made my running frame and dogwalk, even did a good immediate down on the lowered table (which Mum expected to have to handle a little after my fly off at practice with the lowered table). We got a Q with nearly 10 seconds left. Not to shabby.

Day 1 went really well, and we thought it a bit ironic that I got another SQ. Hmmm....

Day 2 I was entered in gamblers, snooker and pairs. Wow, I haven't run pairs in almost 6 years!

We started with gamblers and I have to say I'm a little bit rusty with my discriminations, so no Q for us although I was moving fast in the opening and racking up lots of points.

Next run was another snooker. Here's a little secret. I think Mum likes snooker despite what she'll tell you when you ask her. Ha! Busted! I think Mum was unsure of herself with this one. We got to work on some nice backside sends, but the rest of it was just a bit of a mess. So another NQ.

Our last run of the weekend was pairs. We used to have a system with pairs back in the day. If I ran second I was always a lot faster, as those other dogs running would ramp me up. But our partner was adamant they wanted to go second. So off we went.

I was doing well on a very interesting first four jumps. If I remember right the course started with four jumps all basically in a line, end to end. Lots of folks were baffled about how to handle it, but being a smaller dog, Mum knew she could just stay on one side and treat it as a straight line even though some in the line were front jumps, some backsides. And it worked perfectly (as it did for a few large dogs as well). But Mum got in a late front cross later in the run. I missed my line and went into the tunnel before the jump I needed to take. So another NQ.

I have to tell you...despite the fact that we only got a couple of Q's, Mum and I had a ton of fun. It was very interesting to see how I would handle jumping 12" vs jumping 16". Mum was a bit concerned I would need some jump training, but after a couple of runs I was doing very well. Not barely over the bars, but not four inches over them either.

Mum talked a bit with Stuart if I would need jump training after jumping 16" for almost 9 years. And he said probably not,I'm a smart one and I figure things out quickly. He said give me a little time and I'll get the hang of it.

Next up? Our next trial in May! Stay tuned...