BMD Championship Show - Agility Try outs with Wilson

Some photo's from the Show 

Last Sunday we went to the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Ireland Championship Show. We make an effort to go each year as my family have 3 Bernese, Amber, Cody & Zara, they belong to my sister. We brought Amber & Zara, who were being shown (well Amber was Zara is too young). This year there was a Agility Try out being held in conjunction with the Show. I decided it would be fun to bring Wilson along and a good opportunity to have a go on a "proper" course before the competition in July. I had done lot's of training to be sure to be ready, so far we have 4 Jump's and a set of Weaves for our course. We have a children's play tunnel to practice tunnels and I also set up a long jump using bit's off wood/fencing we have around. I made a A-frame x Dogwalk with a crate, ramp and length of wood, which I checked was totally safe before I let Wilson use it. It was only 1/3 of the size of a real A-fram and 1/4 of the size of a Dogwalk. I also made a "see-saw" although we hadn't gotten very far with training on that.

Anyway, we left early at 9am and arrived in Chloran at 11am. We then got the dog's out and met up with Gilbert (a puppy from Amber's litter), then we found the Agility ring and bought 1 ticket for a run on the course. I had brought my GoPro which I got for my Birthday with us and gave it so my sister and instructed her to stand in the corner of the ring and film him. Then we waited in the queue for our turn. We were allowed treats for the run which I was grateful about as we've not got to the stage where you leave a toy with the person at the end. When it was our turn I ducked under the tape and lined him up for the start. I asked him to Wait and clipped off his leash. I then stepped around the jump and asked him to go, we jumped the first 3 jumps and I then approached the tunnel, I pointed to it as we'd done in training but he wouldn't do it, so we skipped that and moved onto the Hoop, he jumped it but back-to-front but we kept going, then we did some more jumps and he did well on those, then there was another tunnel and we tried and failed to do it - oop's! Then aware our time was running out we raced over the long jump and then several "normal" jumps to where the A-frame was, he ran up it very well, and then ran out of the ring! I fetched him and a lady organizing the Agiltiy said she'd help me with the tunnel, She held him at one end and I went to the other too call him through, but it wasn't working. Then we decided to just leave it and I had another go on the A-frame (there was no See-saw or Dogwalk set up at that point.) He did a fabulous 2o2o for me! We then finished up and left the ring.

We then went back to watch the Bernese, and we did some lovely Sit-Stay's (we'd planned to do an Obedience try-out at the show but never did it) then we had lunch and headed back to the Agility ring in hope of having a second turn, but it was getting late and there was a massive queue - massive! I was quite disappointed as they had by that stage added the Dogwalk and See-saw and made the jumps higher (to Wilson's height) and lengthened the long-jump. However we had had a lovely day with one good run.

Beth + Wilson Xx

A video of our Agility try-out - If the video doesn't work click here to go to the video on YouTube