World Championships Lievin 2011
I guess it doesn't happen every day to be so close to winning World Championships with two dogs! I guess that makes Lievin 2011, my 14th World Championships, for the most successful one ever - followed by Lievin 2003 when La won both runs and her first World Champion title, at only 2 years of age, with Lo on a 2nd place in jumping course and Valladolid 2005 when La won both runs again and won her second title, with Lo on 4th place.
This year started as good as it gets, with La winning jumping individual run, her 11th winning run on WCs - definitely a very unique number in the history of agility World Championships. What made it especially cool is that she was one of the oldest dogs there and one of the smallest medium dogs, beating much bigger "medium" dogs and all the BCs with ease.
To make the day even better, my sweet Bu ended 7th in individual jumping large, what was a really big surprise after she got scared in the preparation ring and started off really slowly. Seeing her time after the run was the nicest surprise ever, it proved again how much one can win (or loose) on tight turns that are definitely Bu's trademark.
Saturday morning started with agility team medium - and I'm not a morning person, that's for sure. La however was full of energy and very excited to run... I was sure happy with her speed and that brilliant weave pole entry, but popping out of the weaves was a big surprise, I don't think she ever popped out of weaves in her life... We sure went for a very long walk after, to burn some of that energy off.
Than Bu's turn again. She again started off slow and the course was not really good for her - too many straight lines and not enough turns where she wins the most - but she again surprised with 4th place. More than amazing for my autistic, no-drive BC!
Our medium team finished as 2nd in jumping run. La again had another nice run - that could be much better though, but I was not as focused as I found a course somewhat boring, way too easy for that level. Despite not so perfect lines, La was amazingly 2nd in that run! Doesn't get much better as that!
And then Bu made my day again, by winning agility team run for almost a second before the 2nd one! Winning two runs on WC, with two so very different dogs, is definitely more important for me as a combination result, so this winning run sure made me very very proud. This is Bu's 4th time to set the best time of all dogs on World Championships!!! Not bad for my slow, no-drive BC 🙂
Sunday was the day of wrong decisions - but some great runs again. I was sure La has enough advantage we can take it easy, so I calmed her down a lot before the run and handled without taking any risks - but we ended up being 0.09s too slow for 3rd World Champion title... If only I pushed better for that tunnel or at least said "La" after dog-walk instead of saying "good girl" first, seeing her perfect contact 🙂 But I guess 3rd place is pretty cool too 🙂
La's two 1st places, one 3rd and one 4th place on WCs will be very hard to beat, she sure is the greatest. And even better as her 3rd place at 10 years was that both, Ashley&Luka on 1st place and Olga&Brava on 4th place, are old friends from my seminars - how cool is that! I know Luka from the times she was hiding in tunnels, lacking confidence to run... And look at her now!
Anyway, after loosing a win with La by 0.09s thanks to taking it easy, I decided to push Bu as much as I can. She was sure running her fastest in this run, it was so much fun to see her so fast and happy in that scary hall. Unfortunately, pushing her that much got me too far on the second jump after dog-walk - much further as I planned, so when I turned around, I had no idea where I am and where we are going. By the time I remembered, I got too much behind her to still handle the following sequence as I planned, so we got off course there... But the rest went well again and it turned out we could easily win even if we took it easy... Oh well.
All in all, I'm very happy with our runs as we had no problems with the courses as such. They were actually very easy for the dogs understanding cik&cap and back/out. As some of my Foundation students noticed: we learn all the skills necessary to run those courses in Foundation class already. To see the importance of cik&cap, see the comparison videos I posted to my Facebook profile.
Hi Silvia, you are the best, I watched all te WC live (here in Colombia was 1am), it was really fun and very exciting, I could feel my heartbeating rapidly several times 🙂
Your running contacts are amaizing, I wish some day do running contacts like you 😉
Congratulations!!!
Thanks! 🙂
Congratulations!!!I saw u in live！I am in china ···china is the first time attend this game!good job so far!I hope we can meet in next year“haha
Yeap, China sure did great for the first time on WC! I didn’t know agility is on such a high level in China!
I dont know what to say that it hasnt been said before… you made me cry of happiness!!! Thank you very much for setting up example!!
Congratulations once again. We were smiling ear to ear the rest of the day after seeing pyrsheps take all top-4 positions in medium.
La definitely seemed slower in the final and we were already fearing that she had not recovered completedly from the previous runs, after all four fast runs in three days could be quite much for such an old dog… 😛 Kind a nice to hear that it was just you taking it easy.
I have to say that Ashley and Luka made also a wonderful run. Luka is quite deceptive with her speed, kind like Bu, while La most of the time also looks like she is going fast.
BTW, did La and Bu get quicly adjusted to the slippery surface? Especially La seem to have very little difficulties with the mat so perhaps being small (and a pyrshep) was advantageous this time.
The best way to avoid slipping is to land with front feet in the right direction 🙂 The dogs who did that had no problems, so yes, Bu and La didn’t have many problems. Bu struggled some after the long jump in individual jumping as I didn’t gave her direction there, being afraid that she will knock the long jump… But I really should give her the direction because whenever I did, she didn’t slip at all. And hm, tired? Who? Bi, Bu, Le -- maybe. La -- never! 🙂
Congratulations, Silvia!!! Simply beautiful, we didn`t see any other teams on this WC whith such a bond like you and your dogs have. In agility we are Slovenians now -- or better Trkmans!!!
Huh, not sure where my comment went?
I am SO very proud to say you are my instructor!!!! You know were Spur’s very first agility seminar presenter!!! 😀 You, La and Bu are simply the best!!!! Congrats on such a wonderful report!!!! No matter what any results say I think you are the best in the world and have the best relationship with your dogs! There is never any doubt they try with everything they have!!!!! So wonderful to watch! Truly amazing work!!!
Amy and Little Spur
Thanks! 🙂 And how did nationals go for you and Spur?
Spur did AWESOME!!! He placed 10th and 14th in quarters to advance to semis, which was amazing to me that he could do that. Then placed 17th in quarters when they only took 11, so again I was amazed. Haven’t actually checked his other class as we just got home very late last night and I am still catching up, but he got a little more over-whelmed as the days went on and lost some speed on his starts. VERY long days from Tuesday through Sunday and it was all a bit over-whelming to us for our first Nationals.
Watching my videos I can see some things we need work on. Starts are an issue and I know that, and I also need to stop CLAPPING at him. I really hate when I do that. He just needs the info, not clapping. Thanks to your remote classes I have gotten better at watching my videos and learning from them. 😀
His RDW’s were absolutely PERFECT all week!!! And he probably looked happiest at the DW section of his courses!!! YAY!!! Obviously, DWs are very fun for him and I need to make all the rest of it just as fun! 😀
I am SO very proud of him for holding it together at such a HUGE event (1000 runs per day, most days!!) because he sure was not very happy doing agility a little over a year ago, as you saw in that video I posted in Puppy Class II.
Thank you for asking!!!
Amy and Little Spur
Wow, that’s really great! So happy to hear his DWs were all perfect and happy 🙂 But yes, I can imagine he was getting tired by the end, I noticed with my dogs that nothing tires them as much as the crowd, noise and stress of big competitions.