This is our third time at Charleville-Mézière!
Our first time was when we were in grade 1, at the agility by night, the second time in grade 2, and this time in grade 3!

Now, I’m disappointed by our performance this weekend. We are almost always disqualified on the same error: our inability to do outs properly.

Otherwise, a nice competition, nice courses, nice peoples and in special guest: the sun!

05/04/2025

The judge was Hervé Chaillou from France.

Disqualified because I had to help her on the out after the A-frame.

Disqualified on at the out after the long jump. She doesn’t do it properly whenever she needs to put in a little effort.

Again, out, missing it and disqualified. We also never succeeded in finishing the weave pole, and we are not the only ones; this is incredibly difficult for the dogs. My theory is that they somehow feel like they are going into the tunnel that is near, and they get out at some point.

06/05/2025

The judge was Vincent Montaigné from France.

The second jump was an out, and guess what? She didn’t do it properly. Yes, I don’t show it well because I need to run forward to handle the long jump.
This was the third time in a row that we were disqualified for the same mistake, this time on the second jump. I was really disappointed and annoyed; the rest of the run was a mess and a collection of failure.

At least she did a two-out sequence and succeeded.

This time, she failed to do the In, again on the second jump. The thing is, I’m not the only one building frustration; Kaïa is also questioning what she did wrong.

We failed to handle the weave pole, she happily ran into the tunnel, and I completely failed to correct it. Other than that, we cleared the rest of the course nicely, and she even managed to do a difficult out.

This time, we are disqualified on a tunnel discrimination. This is more normal, I guess. Nice weave pole entry!

The judge was Marilyn Lemoine from France.

Last Saturday, we were at Domvast for a Hooper competition. Hooper is not yet a standardized international sport, but the French Hoopers is close to the Belgian. Our dogs were not lost at all.
There is one main difference: in levels 0 and 1, your dog must go across the box. At first, I did not understand why. But after this competition, I realized that it makes it easier to control your dog and make it change direction. It’s a great tool to teach young dogs and build good habits.

For the first course, Kaïa was super exited to meet a new place and people, and she kind of not listened to me for the first 2/3 obstacles. Granted, I could have predicted that and been more present to help her.

There are way more gates in those courses, and we don’t train much on them. Something to change.

The last course was way better; she still struggled to find the first gate but cleared the rest with ease.

The judge was Marleen Haeneefstingels from Belgium.

14/03/2025

The first jumping was a mess, and we failed so many things.

The agility was a bit messy but better and it’s our first grade 3 were we are not disqualified. It’s something…

15/03/2025

That was a hell of a jumping, I got 2 miracles at the end of the hall, where she took both jumps (almost) only with verbal commands. But I was too late to help her clear the dead jump and she took it.

Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite courses of the weekend. It’s very challenging and requires a lot of precision and control to send your dog in the right direction. Of course, you have to do this with the dog being accelerated by the tunnels.

16/03/2025

This seesaw! Amazing control.
There is a lot of good behavior, I also noted that she controls her speed right before entering the weave pole.

We are disqualified on the last jump, I forgot to call her before pushing forward. I pushed forward and she obliged.

I said nothing about the tire… She did not take the tire…

The judge was Tamara Cuypers from Belgium.

First official Hooper competition of the year.
The first run was flawless.

Three faults on the second run, we don’t get a point to move to H2. We do need to work more on the cross.

The judge was Patrick Villardry from France

This is her first Obedience competition in a long time. We don’t have much training, but I wanted to see what she could do.

She did very well, it’s not easy to see it on the video, but she turns a little on the left. It’s something I have tried to correct for ages, but she doesn’t like to stay straight. Otherwise, it’s a good exercise.

She did it backward… It was a fun moment. We didn’t train this one much, she understands the concepts I guess.

She moved a bit when I turned, I need to do that more often. I was confused because I forgot that in grade 3, you can have the object at the edge of the line.
After some hesitation (I guess she was also confused), she took the right one. You can see my surprise in the video when they announce the result.

This is my favorite exercise of this competition, I didn’t even know that she could do it so well.

Heelwork was never our strong side. In grade 3 it’s a long walk of pain for Kaïa. You really can see that she struggles to focus, the stress of the competition takes its toll.

The backward walk is a lot better now, as well as the sidewalk. Positions were on point.

Going forward to nowhere, this makes no sense to me, and Kaïa doesn’t understand yet. I was too late for the stop command and she was outside of the box.

This is an other 0. But this one is just the lack of training, if she did go forward correctly, she would have succeeded.