Alberta Portuguese Water Dog Club of Canada

A few weekends ago, Kili and I attended a CKC trial. There are only three CKC agility trials every year in Edmonton. We travel to Calgary once a year as well to hit the big one in Spruce Meadows, making a total of 4 per year. In those 4 trials we have to get as many points as we can in order to make CKC's Top Dogs list.

 We really love CKC trials because the course design suits Kili a lot better. They tend to flow smoother, and there is more space between obstacles (18ft as opposed to 15ft in AAC) which gives Kili more space and time to turn her big body when she's going fast. It also means that she rarely has to bounce a jump. A bounce is when a dog doesn't have room between landing and taking off between two jumps. When the back feet land it is also the take off for the next jump. Kili regularly bounces jumps in AAC, but almost never in CKC.

This trial is held in conjunction with a large conformation, obedience, and rally show so it is a busy place. The agility arena is somewhat isolated from the majority of the madness, and I keep Kili mostly to the agility area since she doesn't like conformation and will sometimes get upset and shut down if she sees the tents. This year a sighthound club was hosting a conformation specialty, and they also sponsored a prize for the highest scoring sighthound in agility, which Kili won.

At this 3 day trial, Kili completed her Excellent Jumpers With Weaves title, and earned 2 Standard and 1 JWW Q in Master Excellent, the highest level. She now needs to accumulate a total of 10 Standard and 10 JWW for her championship.

She also got her final two Novice Points and Distance (PAD) Q's to move up to Intermediate. PAD is kind of like the Gamble class in AAC with a distance component that the dog must complete to qualify.