18 months - AAC debut

Kenna turned 18 months old on Friday and weighed in at 27 kg. She had her AAC debut the very next day and I was very pleased with how it went. Overall she was fast and driven, but also focused and controlled.

We started with just a single run on Saturday in Jumpers. She rattled a couple bars, but left them all up, and finished the course clean in a little over 15 seconds... earning herself her first Q and also first place in the entire Starters class.

On Sunday Kenna got to run 3 times. She earned her very first Standard Q-  that first Q took Kili over a year to achieve and Kenna gets it her first try... go figure! She had a few problems with the weave poles, but she was very high (translation: excited, driven, over the top) and this club's weaves aren't perfectly straight which you can actually see in the video. Kili had a hard time with these weave poles  too when she was a novice dog. I was really proud of Kenna for getting through them and it's good for the dogs to see weaves that aren't perfectly straight so that it just becomes another potential problem that you have proofed against. I was happy with her contacts as she hit her 2-on-2-off positions quickly and showed good understanding and control - you can see her begin to release off the A-frame as I'm making the blind cross in front of her, but she remembers and steps back on her own to wait for the release word.

Her second Jumpers run was beautiful, but unfortunately she knocked a bar, and I think that threw her off stride so that she missed the next jump. I was really happy with the way she quickly called off the tunnel though and came back to take the missed jump.

Her final run wasn't videoed but we had a little teaching moment. She was the very last dog of the day and it had been a long day for a young dog! She had a bit of puppy brain and broke her start line, so we ended up spending all of our time working a start line. It's part of transitioning a young dog from training to trialing - they have to learn that the rules still apply in competition! It was a valuable lesson and I'm hoping she remembers it next weekend for her CKC debut!

Overall, I was so happy with this weekend and so excited to see what the future holds for us as a team.