Our first USDAA trial

Irie competed in her first United States Dog Agility Association trial this weekend. We've been taking agility classes on and off since I first got Irie several years ago. We got into it mostly because the place I first took her for obedience also did agility and encouraged me to get involved with it as she seemed to have the personality and speed for it. However, we'd never actually gone to a trial. I decided that I'd like to give one a try and see what it was all about, so this weekend we did just that.

I didn't have much of an idea of what to expect, so we only entered one run (most of the dogs were entered in several different categories), so we spent much of the morning watching the other dogs compete, but it was a good learning experience.

On our actual run, we did OK. We were slow and Irie wasn't a big fan of doing the "chute" (basically a closed tunnel), so we ran out of time, but overall, she did pretty well on all the obstacles. So, now, we can return to class understanding more of what the end goal is!

Mostly it's something we both enjoy doing, so while I don't think it's something we'll ever travel far or wide to do or be super competitive in, I don't think this will be our last trial.

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And here are some shots of her jumping. She makes it look so easy!