CKC Fort Saskatchewan

Kili and I attended a full weekend CKC trial recently. We seldom do full weekend trials; there are so many local trials around us that it's just more convenient for us to do single days at multiple trials. I also work every other Saturday so frequently we will just attend on Sunday. CKC trials are different though; we almost always attend as many days as are offered, because there are so few of these trials offered (typically only 3-4 per year).

We tend to do better at CKC as the challenges they present are quite different from AAC where there are a lot of backsides of jumps and back and forth courses. CKC is usually a lot smoother and flowier, which suits a greyhound much better. We did find the courses at this particular trial a little bit more challenging than typical for CKC in the sense that they had a little more of the AAC style to them. Kili still did quite well and was able to complete her Excellent Standard title, and get 2 of her required 3 for Excellent Jumpers With Weaves. We also tried out Novice PAD for the first (official) time and got our first Q there too. You may remember that back when Kili just started to compete we went to a CKC Fun Match and trial one evening. The point of that match was to introduce people to the new game of PAD. The fun match was to allow people to try it out first, and then after that they ran a couple of "for real" runs. Kili did pretty well in the fun match so I entered her in the actual trial. She didn't get the Q that time, but neither of us really knew what we were doing!

I also got a new camcorder so you may notice the video quality is much improved! I'm still learning about it though, and unintentionally recorded in MP4 mode which none of my video editing software recognizes. Which just means that I wasn't able to put all the clips together in one video like I normally do, and had to upload each of the 4 recorded runs separately.

Here was Kili's first run of the weekend, Excellent JWW. I love her speed and enthusiasm! We had a close call at the very start of the course, but didn't get called for a refusal. This line wasn't quite straight, and I lingered a little too long to make sure she committed to the second jump before I started moving. Unfortunately, Kili is just too long and I really need to get out of the way! It's just a learning thing and as she matures and improves I will be able to trust her more and get moving sooner! Other than that the run was beautiful until we got to the weave poles. She tried REALLY hard to put on the brakes to make that entrance, but she was just going too fast. Again, this is just learning for her. Eventually, she will recognize that weave poles mean she needs to slow down sooner. I was still very impressed with her effort to try to get the entry - it was obvious she was clear on what her job was. It was a beautiful run, but because of the missed entry on the weave poles this was an NQ.

This is Kili's second run - also Excellent JWW. A very nice run again and she got the Q!

This was her one Excellent Standard Q this weekend. She just needed one to finish out her Excellent title, so I was really happy she got it. She had a couple of other pretty good runs in Standard, but there was always a little thing here or there that prevented us from getting the Q. I recommend turning down the volume for this one as there was some pretty epic screaming to keep her on course! That's a little bit of her and a little bit of me still being a novice handler.

And here is her second Excellent JWW Q. This was the last run of the day, so she was quite tired and so this run isn't as fast. Still, she gave it a good effort and she listened well. She was also very good with her weave poles, which can be a problem at the end of the day when she's tired.