Riley's First AKC Agility Show!

We did it and survived! Our first agility show was a blast! And not only did Riley and I have a ton of fun, we even earned some Q's! Going into the show, my only real expectation was to not have Riley run zoomies around the course. Which at some points I could tell he was fighting them off!

Day 1 was nerve wracking and COLD! Which didn't help with my shivering! I got there in plenty of time and got Riley measured, then my friends talked me through some of the finer points. The first course of the day for me was, Novice A JWW. I walked through the course over and over, and was having trouble figuring out how to get to the weaves, which was a really tight right turn. I got my game plan and went to get Riley and in literally no time I was up, my knees were shaking (and not from the cold) and I walked to the start line.

I decided to do a big lead out, as I had planned to do a front-cross at jump 3, but I was nervous and you can see in the video, I all of a sudden go, "oh yea! move!". The first sequence was good, but then Riley caught a whiff of Daddy in the stands and decided to go say hi! I called him back and had a good second sequence, then came the weaves. We tried our 3 times and just couldn't get it, so the judges called for us to move on. The 3rd sequence was awesome (you can kinda see him fighting the zoomies here). We NQ'ed but I was so stinking happy! We ran our first course and didn't look like idiots!

Our second run of the day was Standards, and I felt much better, I wasn't as nervous and had the first run jitters out of the way. My only hope here was that he would hit his contact and again, not run out of the ring. And just in case Riley decided to say hi to Dad again, I had hubby video from the elevated booth above the arena. Riley did AWESOME, he even got the weaves! We had a few little blips, but we earned our first Q and even a first place!!!!

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Day 2 was so much better! Riley and I both figured out what we were doing and both were a lot more confident! Again, our first run of the day was JWW, and wasn't as nervous as the previous day, but still nervous. When they started I was suppose to be dog #7, but there were a few absent and a couple who were late. There was one 24" dog and then they called me to the line since I was there! Yikes! I got Riley lined up and waited for the jump height to be change, and off we went! We had a couple refusals, Riley doesn't seem to like/understand rear-crosses yet, so I got some spins, but other then that we had a wonderful run! With our first JWW Q and a 1st place!!!

Next was Novice STD. Over the course of the weekend, with each run, Riley was more and more focused and that was no different for this course. This was our best run of the weekend, earning us our 2nd STD Q and another 1st place!

This weekend, Riley and I earned 3 Q's and three 1st places! We had so much fun and learned a lot! Thank you, to all of you who gave me words of encouragement and support! Our first trial was a blast and I could not have asked for more from my awesome dog, Riley! I am so proud of him! I can't wait for the next trial!

End of day 1 after earning his first STD Q and 1st place!

Riley earned 2 Novice STD Q's and a Novice JWW Q!

Also, in earning our first Q, we earned our club crate sign and shirt!