My boys did good!

Well, well, what a day yesterday! Our first agility trial, actually our first anything trial. As crazy as ever we still went for the morning agility training at NSDTC, to try and brush up on some particular items, such as let's pick one: the DOG WALK. Mawson was very good, really switched on and after a few false starts we got him to pass on the fateful dog walk. I even ran Monty (the dog of our instructor Cyril) on part of the course and did great. It is funny how Monty listens to me now, after I played with him a few times.
We snuck out early with exceptional dispensation :) and headed back home for a little bit of a swim/cool down (for Mawson), then off to the our first agility trial!
Our main aim of the day was to keep Mawson cool, focussed and try for him not to run away and possibly finish the course, while having fun... And for me not to have a nervous breakdown...

As it was a gun dog trial of all sorts, there was a limited amount of participants, compared to some of the larger open events. Though quite a healthy number, I thought. And it was definitely hot!!!!
First up was agility. It was so nice to see so many gun dogs having fun, but you could also see that the heat affected a bit the early courses, with dogs thinking more of a nice relaxing swim in the pool than jumping and running over stuffs. Then Mawson's turn came. Started fine until he saw the dog walk and stopped in his tracks, Martin tried a few times to get him on, nope! Ah well disqualification then :(. But Martin continued on the rest of the course just for experience, and he did everything so perfectly (Mawson did, though Martin wasn't so bad either!). No bars down, did all of the items beautifully and did his best weaves so far. Damn that dog walk!
Then following a bit of waiting about for the higher classes of jumping, and a bit of whining from Mawson, just for good measure... It was time again for the monster to do his novice jumping course. The monster was fast and furious, flying about but just clipped one of the corner bars down with the tip of his tootsies. Just one tiny little bar down, but such a beautiful run. I was very proud of my boys.
The best of it is that Mawson actually topped the novice jumping course and finished first! He earned his pocket money to go get his bones. Just didn't get a qualification for the title because of that tiny bar, ah well I'm sure that will come. And it was already amazing and far more than what we were expecting for our first trial.

The ceremony

Looking all proud, after I convinced him
that it was NOT a tug toy

Next time we will be better prepared and know that we can also enter open as well as novice courses. And then the sky is the limit! Methinks Mawson will try to get all sorts of letters after his name.

Posing for posterity
...sun...in...eyes...ouch