MACH Luna

Well, this finally happened. At 5.5 years old we finally achieved our MACH title under a Malinois judge no less!  We’ve been chipping away at it over the years, but due to not trialing in AKC a lot it’s been slow going.  This year, though, she’s been on fire.  A big cause for that is probably because I dropped her to 24″ this year instead of the 26″ that I had been jumping her at […]

European Open 2016 Recap

The 2016 European Open that just concluded marked the 3rd time that Luna and I have traveled to Europe to compete at the event.  The event is probably the largest agility event being held currently.  While it is not the most prestigious event I believe it is by far the hardest event to compete at and actually medal in.  Just the sheer number of competitors means that anything can happen.  On top of that, all […]

2016 IFCS WAC Biathlon Jumping Analysis

At the recently completed 2016 IFCS WAC the last full course Luna and I ran was the biathlon jumping course on Sunday.  It was a clean run for us and good enough to be 8th fastest which helped us finish 7th overall in the biathlon event.  However, when I looked at the times of the dogs above me, the top dogs were a full 2 seconds faster than Luna and I.  After watching our run […]

Recent Happenings

Since I haven’t posted a lot here recently, I thought I’d do a recap of recent goings on.  There are 4 major international events every year that we may or may not target depending on timing.  For AKC/FCI, we have the European Open (EO) and the Agility World Championship (AWC).  For USDAA/IFCS there is the IFCS World Agility Championship.  Finally, for UKI there is the World Agility Open (WAO).  Each of the U.S. agility organizations […]

EO 2016 Tryouts

  The EO 2016 tryouts were held this past weekend in Middleton, WI at Canine Sports Zone.  Luna and I attended trying to earn our way on for a 3rd year in a row for a chance to compete in France at the end of July 2016.  If we’re fortunate enough to earn a spot on the team, I hope the 3rd time is the charm for us at the European Open event.  As for the […]

Cynosports 2015

I had some high personal expectations going into the 2015 Cynosport World Games.  After 2 straight years of attending the European Open as well as further refinement of my handling as well as more experience overall I thought we could do really well at this event.  So, with that, I had some goals that I wanted to reach. Goal #1 was to make at least 1 final.  Goal #2 was to place in at least one final. […]

European Open 2015 Here We Come!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything here agility related.  The last time I posted about agility it was a few days before heading up to Minnesota to attend the AKC World Team Tryouts.  That was all the way back at the end of April!  Since then I started writing new posts, but never could seem to finish them.  So that’s how I get all the way into the middle of July without […]

ITT 2015 Thoughts and Musings

In less than 24 hours Luna and I will pile into the car and set off to drive to Minneapolis for our 2nd AKC International Team Tryout event.  Last year was our first time going and we did well enough to be selected to join the 2014 EO team that traveled to Hungary.  Since the EO, my perspective on agility has changed tremendously.  As I get ready to head to ITT, I wanted to write down […]

Learning Not To Scoreboard Watch

This past weekend Luna and I attended the USDAA North Central Regional in Naperville, IL.  It was our first big event we have attended since the UKI U.S. Open back in October and only our 2nd trial since Luna’s injury scare.  Coming into the weekend I vowed to myself that I would not look at the scoreboard until after the whole class had run.  For the most part I stuck to that plan, but on […]

Luna’s Return & Mentally Overcoming Injury

This upcoming weekend will mark our return to competitive agility after a 3 month break from trialing and almost 2 months from agility anything.  I had been looking to incorporate a multi-month agility break for Luna for some time now.  Since she turned 15 months old it’s been non-stop with hardly any breaks for her.  Granted, we’re not trialing every weekend, but we do practice an awful lot.  We usually have at least 1 class a […]