After 35,000 steps; 4 different dogs competing in 15 separate agility, obedience, or conformation events over 2 days; lots of meeting and greeting the public; and a 345 mile round trip in the Passat (at over 40 mpg) we returned from Portland last night. Saturday’s start in agility was a bit rocky for Bella but she had a great Novice Obedience performance with first place and a second place Master’s Jumper’s run. Teddy had his first try at International Standard Agility, where he took third place. At 9 months old Ben got his first turn in Beginner Novice Obedience, where he worked every exercise without any ring nerves (video to follow soon I hope). Knixa worked well for me and her handler in the breed ring and also did a great job on her Excellent Jumper’s course on Sunday. For Bella our best results came on Sunday with 3rd place in Standard Agility, 2nd in Jumpers, and 2nd in International Jumpers, where we had our best and most connected run of the weekend.
To give you an idea of the field this year, 16″ or medium jump height had the largest Masters/Excellent entry. In a welcome move AKC has opened up International courses to all jump heights, not just international small, medium, and large heights and consequently the entry for that event was double last years. Also, I heard from one of the AKC reps that overall agility is now approaching the biggest entry at of all competitions at Rose City.
Jim and or I have been coming to Rose City nearly every year for the last 10 years. We’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere with the crowds, vendors, and lots of friends to connect with. It’s been hard to resist the allure of being able to do all the types of competitions under one roof! We’ve treated it like a mini-regional event but always crammed everything into 2 days. It feels this year like the event is maturing into a real “regional” for agility. Maybe next year with more Pumis ready for competition I’ll try to make it a 3 or 4 day event where we have more time to focus on just agility … okay and maybe obedience too 🙂
A couple of our participants at Rose City this year.
MayaLu Dogs 