Sheltie Agility Fun Match

Today Saskatoon Area Shetland Sheedog Association (SASSA) hosted a CKC sanction agility match as a fundraiser for the Canadian Shetland Sheepdog National to be held in Saskatoon next spring.

Since Romeo is entered in a couple of agility trials at the end of September, I am taking every opportunity possible to get him running in "trial conditions". Even if this is CKC and he will be running AAC for his first few trials. Plus, I like to get out and support the Sheltie club whenever possible. I'm SUPER excited about the National in May, so it's fun to be around other people that are just as excited as I am!

There were lots of Shelties at the sanction match today, even though all CKC breeds were allowed to run. Seems like all the local Shelties wanted to come out and support the cause as well!

A veritable shaggle of Shelties!

Among the furry crowd was Romeo's momma! She is a super sweet girl, and her and Romeo love to play when they see each other. Now that Romeo has grown into a "big boy", I wanted to get a picture of him and his dam. They look so much alike, and have very similar temperaments (and love for agility!).

Baby Romeo and his mom, Holly.

Big boy Romeo and his mom, Holly.

Like momma, like son.

As for the actual agility part of the morning, that went really well also! I am very pleased with my little man! We ran a standard course where Romeo plowed through the chute after not having seen one for nearly a year. He also met a few new jump types (like the plank jump) that he had never seen before. Those tripped him up a bit, but certainly didn't slow him down. Just a knocked bar, but he kept on his way. Everything else about the standard run I was very pleased with, no complaints for me! Our jumpers with weaves run was also very nice, in my uneducated opinion. Romeo LOVES weaves, it's just a matter of getting IN them. We are working on entries, and they are coming along nicely, but don't always hold up in exciting "trial" situations. But once we were past the weaves, everything else was very nice! I messed up and forced an off course by sending him "go" jump instead of calling him into me and sending to a different jump. He did exactly what I told him to do, so can't blame him at all. I just need to learn to handle on the fly.

I'm quite happy with the outcomes from this morning! Makes me feel better that we might not make fools of ourselves (read: I might not make a fool of Romeo) in our first trials in a couple of weeks!

Now off to a Rally-O fun match that I am hosting out at a friend's acreage!