Courses, Ashville, NC - 9/19/2009

In theory, this is going to be a short post because I'm tired and really need to get some sleep tonight. However, I have so many thoughts going through my mind, I'm not sure how the heck I'm going to do that!

As an overview, it was another incredible day in North Carolina. Great exhibitors, a wonderful club and an incredible BBQ dinner to top it off. Even more fun was all of the wonderful company, both judges, old friends and new friends as well!

I loved watching the dogs run my courses today and while I hate to sound like a broken record, the handlers really did a great job of working them.

My favorite course of the day was probably Excellent FAST. That's a bit of a surprise because I'm not a FAST fan. It's just my personal opinion, but the inconsistency in rules and the band-aid fixes over the last year have really turned me off on this class.

Even with all of the above said, I work hard to come up with unique Bonus challenges and try hard to put out a FAST course that makes handlers think by offering plenty of unique options. Today's fit the bill and I really enjoyed judging it. The Bonus had an option where one direction was worth more points than the other and the #10 obstacle was a two part obstacle that could be take in any direction. Again, lots of options out there and people were able to move around the course to get a ton of points.
My next favorite course was the Excellent JWW.

This was a fast course that offered up a few challenges that I'm not sure even I expected!

First, several dogs went running wide and went around the #3 jump. The main style of handling the opening sequence was either 1) by leading out, calling the dog over #1 & 2 with their left hand and then turning into the dog to present #3. Most dogs had trouble collecting for this option. 2) handlers did a front cross between #2 & 3.

In my opinion, the best place for a cross was at #4. Either as a rear cross or a front cross between #3 & #4.

The next challenge area was from #9 to #10. Surprisingly, the off course dummy jump called a handful of dogs. The other common error was that handlers were pulling up before #10 and the dog would curl into them and take the #11 jump backward. Overall, handlers smoked this course and were a ton of fun to watch as their speed increased throughout the course.

Last but not least was Excellent Standard. I liked how this course ran, but I wasn't able to watch the majority of the 20-24 & 26" dogs run it as a provisional judge stepped in to handle my overflow runs while I went off to do Jumpers.

The major issue the dogs I judged seemed to have was that they were leaving the descending side of the dog walk contact early to curl into the #3 tunnel. Of course this was at the prompting of their handler : )

As I mentioned, the courses today ran great...I'm officially off to bed. I'm so tired from all the fun! : )