This past year I was fortunate enough to qualify three dogs — Nikon, Snapshot and Trey — for the 2011 AKC National Agility Championship in Lexington, Virginia. This was to be Nikon’s 4th year in a row qualifying, but the first year for both Snapshot and Trey. So, we packed up a very full car and headed south to Virginia for a wonderful weekend of agility and friends.
At 8.5 years old, Nikon was in 9th place after three rounds out of 111 dogs but was JUST out of the finals since they only take 8 dogs. Ugh, so close. He was not running at his best with a sore back, but he put in a great effort. He ran clean in all of his runs, not bad for an older guy with a sore back.
Trey did a fine job for a youngster, running clean in 2 out of his 5 runs with minor handler errors due to his increased speed and baby dog inexperience. But he certainly did not seem phased by the atmosphere.
Snapshot ran well the first day, but I caused some minor errors in both her runs. Then on Saturday she woke up with a dead tail. I ran her in her first run, but she was very uncomfortable during her second run, so I pulled her off course. I did not run her in the last class of the weekend as her tail was still painful.