2008 AKC Agility Nationals

They were held in Tulsa, OK this year and HOLY BUCKETS!! What a facility! It was AWESOME!! 3 rings in one building, a solo ring in another building. That single ring was honestly large enough to have had two rings in it. It was similar to Wentzville. The "dirt" in the main arena was a clay mix. FANTASTIC surface! The only down side - if your dog had white feet, they turned orange by the end of the day. I shoulda had a RED DOG!!! G

Another HUGE plus - all the buildings were attached. Plenty of crating, we rented a stall with Mary Beth and it was wonderful! Probably best of all, after last year was the amount of parking. Trust me, there was NO way we could have filled it. All cement! No parking fee and No admission fee! FANTASTIC!!

We arrived Thursday afternoon and it was 83 degrees! Sorry Tulsa, you had to see my white legs!! When we left home (9 hours earlier) it was 33 - we traveled through rain, sleet, ice, fog. We finally go out of it and got into the warm weather! It wasn't meant to last however, as we were only in the 40's the rest of the weekend. That's okay, we were inside.

Friday was the state team competition and since Iowa didn't have enough entries to make a team of our own we were combined with other small entry states to form the "Central States" team. Our Team members numbered 9. With other teams numbering up to 109 we were starting in the red, but we actually did very well. This was the International Class and the course involved a treadle, it was quite fun to execute and you could use your "OLAY" move we learned from Lori in October. I'm happy to report that Kruz was perfect in the state competition. He ran in the 20" class vs. the 26" class which is where his height would actually put him. You were able to show at your AKC height and your time would count toward team points, but would not count for any placements or clean run ribbons.

For the Championship classes the 20" class was the largest of the heights - with 218 dogs. There were some AMAZING and I mean AMAZING dogs! WOW!! It was a lot of fun to watch. We were split into 4-5 walking groups that alternated throughout the weekend. For instance I walked in the 1st/4th/2nd groups on Saturday and Sunday. Each group had 7 minutes to walk before the running began and you never ran in the same order. Our class was so large they they had mandatory breaks for the judge, so you had to watch for those as well when planning to get your dog. In one class I ran 5th, in another 186. It was very fun, but I must admit, I'd rather run early and enjoy the rest of the class then watch and wonder if you should change your plan.
FOCUS ESTER!!!!!!!!!

Kruz ran well all weekend and actually let ME lead on one run. (and Jeff said I can't dance because I couldn't let the man lead!!) Of course it was Sunday's course and he was probably feeling sorry for me by then. NOT!!! The other 4 runs I was "reactive" handling - I hate that! But we got'er done! He was 5 for 5, with 3 - Q's in the actual championship competition and 3 green rosettes. He finished 31 over all in the height division. The top 18 went onto the finals and one from the Challenger round.

The Challenger round! OMG!! Talk about fun to watch! This was made up of those dogs that placed in the 3 classes, but for whatever reason did not get enough accumulation points to make it to the finals. You had to win your height division in order to move to the championships. I would NOT want to be in this situation!! For Several reasons! Too much pressure and you get the last pick of the finalist shirt sizes!! VBG It was AWESOME!!! FUN FUN FUN! There was this most wonderful light built Rott bitch, but she was beaten out by a fraction of a second in the 24" class by what else.... a border collie!

The shirts were baby blue, not my choice of color but I would have worn it! After I'd found some black pants of course! One poor gal got stuck with a HUGE shirt as she was in the challenger round and had last pick. It was funny as she'd cut off the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt. Reminded me of one of Barb's custom jobs!! Wonder if they will make a rule about that next year?

The finals were fun to watch of course and I was pleased that they too ran full tilt. I was surprised how many dog weren't clean however. Not sure how Animal Planet will handle that one! G One "iffy" call by the judge Don Farage (who I think it great!), I couldn't tell where I was sitting, but others said the dog hit it. Everyone was doing running contacts, so it was truly hard to tell. All I know is I would NOT want THAT job! Makes me wonder if AKC will think about having 4 judges for the finals. One watching each bottom of a contact and one for everything else. Makes sense to me.

Ann Braue's Screamer did something funny in the 26" final class. The start was a serpentine with 2 jumps and a teeter. Ann kept running after the teeter and Screamer didn't hear the release word. He stuck his teeter and held it, Ann in the mean time was past the next jump and at the tunnel entrance by the time she noticed her dog wasn't with her. HYSTERICAL! What a well trained dog.

The courses were made up by Don Farage, Rachel Long, Pam Sturtz, Jean Munger, Kera Holms, Laura English and a couple others. They were Wonderful! Fun to run and fair.

We got out of there by 430 or so and the dogs each got a baby cone at the Dairy Queen. We stayed over night in KC, MO and drove the rest of the way home Monday. Okay...so Bill drove. G

Next year it's in NC, a rather long drive. It would sure be nice to have it back in Tulsa again some day and maybe we could make up our own Iowa team!!