"He's a Rockstar!"

After a busy and HOT Saturday, I questioned if Tripp would be up for an agility trial on Sunday.  Thankfully it was scheduled for afternoon, but I still wondered...  No worries - after a good night's sleep, Tripp arose with energy to spare. 
Quite some time ago, I entered us in the ACNH trial at American K9 Country on 8/5.  Entries fill quickly, as this club's prices are low (for AKC), so you must enter early.  I had only done one other AKC agility trial last year (our very first trial, also ACNH) and enjoyed it, but had no serious plans to pursue it.  However, now that we are taking a break from creative grooming, I decided to try it again.  I do like that, while still challenging, you don't need an absolutely clean run to Q, as in USDAA, plus the jumps are a tad lower, so it's easier on Tripp's body.  He certainly had no trouble navigating these courses, and didn't drop a single bar on the jumps.  Not that he was without faults...
First up was regular agility class.  Overall, we had a nice run.   Tripp did go off course once (which loses points, but still qualifying), unfortunately, being amped up at the beginning, he blew the contact off the dogwalk.  (Contact zones are required to prevent the dog from jumping off too soon/high and risking injury.)  As a safety violation, that was an automatic failure, so we NQed.  He still was a hit - so many people asked "who's that dog?" and complimented our run.  One person exclaimed, "he's a rockstar!" LOL  Yes, he is one awesome boy. 
After a nice break, we were back in the ring for Jumpers class.  This is a fast course with no contact obstacles; just jumps, tunnels and weave poles.  Here, you do need a clean run to Q.  Standard course time was set at 40 seconds.  Tripp was the very last dog of the day, and he was raring to go - into the ring that is.  He zipped through the course beautifully, without fault, and we earned our first leg/Q - in only 19.65 seconds!  See, they saved the best for last.  ;-)

I also put Tripp's Jumpers run in slo-mo... because watching him once just isn't enough. ;-)