Two Trials, Great Courses, Wonderful Teams!

By Denny Van Hook

DCA 2023 Agility was a BLAST!! Some very experienced competitors mixed in with a bunch of great new handlers and dogs to make the day a lot of fun. There were dogs that have been competing for years and some who only compete once a year at Nationals.

Dachshund Agility has grown over the years from a small group of crazy enthusiasts to some real wonderful and talented competitors.

course changes. It was a real pleasure to work with her!

We tried a few new things this year with agility at DCA 2023. First, at the request of many exhibitors, we ran two trials in one day! At closing, we had 90 entries in the three types of classes in the first trial and 59 entries in the two types of classes in the second trial, a very good showing!

Starting at 8 am, the first trial was the “official DCA National Agility Trial” for purposes of awards and the Triathlon competition. The second trial was a DCA sponsored trial. That sounds like it would be easy to

5. DCA Sponsored Jumpers with Weaves (Master, Excellent, Open, Novice)

This plan was great for minimizing moving big equipment like the Dog Walk, Teeter, and AFrame but created an interesting question that meant we had to call AKC in the middle of the day. Specifically, we needed to know if a dog was able to move up from one class to another on the same day. For example, if a dog finished his Open title in the first trial could they move up to Excellent for the second trial even though

The teams of dogs and people are always enjoyable to watch as they work together to navigate the courses.

Our superb judge was a “dachshund person”, Ronda Bermke. She drove down from a judging assignment in Wisconsin the night before, judged our two agility trials on Monday, and went on to judge the host show breed competition on Tuesday. She is truly an “Energizer Bunny!” Her courses were challenging but dachshund-friendly and very well nested to minimize time needed for manage, but to make it more interesting. . . and to save time on resetting courses (so we could get done on time), we also ran both trials (sort of) at the same time.

The order of the classes was:

1. DCA Nationals FAST (Master, Excellent, Open, Novice)

2. DCA Nationals Standard (Master, Excellent, Open, Novice)

3. DCA Sponsored Standard (Master, Excellent, Open, Novice)

4. DCA Nationals Jumpers with Weaves (Master, Excellent, Open, Novice) the two trials were only minutes apart. We didn’t get a final answer from AKC until several days later because they had never had to answer that question before. The bottom line was that if the Trial Secretary was willing to do it, AKC would support it! And we had an absolutely wonderful Trial Secretary, Theresa Concoran of GameOn

K9Events, who was more than willing to work with us! Next year we will make it clear in the Premium List so there are no questions about move ups.

We also hired a local agility stewards service, Dog Agility Show Services (DASS). Several of their stewards were also local dachshund people, including Kevin, Melissa, and Rachael Fritz. DASS tackled some of the major jobs like Scribe, Timer, and Chief Course Builder, but many thanks are also due to all of those competitors who stepped up and volunteered to fill in the blanks. The trials ran very smoothly because of all the willing helpers. They deserve a very big

THANK YOU!!

A worker’s raffle, with many wonderful donated items, and a good supply of chocolate candy were a big hit and a small reward to those who pitched in to help. A hardy congratulations to the winners for this year (based on clean and fast runs):

High Scoring Dog in Regular Standard Classes:

“Evan!” DC Sharpree's Lightning (Bug) in a Bottle CD RN TDU AX MXJ JE

Sharon McDonald

High Scoring Dog in Regular Jumpers Classes:

“Evan!” DC Sharpree's Lightning (Bug) in a Bottle CD RN TDU AX MXJ JE

Sharon McDonald

High Scoring Dog in Preferred Standard Classes

“Nova” Re:Joyce New Star RA MXP4