The winner for Westminster 2016’s 8-inch agility contest is Wren, a Papillon, with a time of 33.37 seconds and no faults.
2nd place: Quill, a Parson Russell Terrier, 39.21 seconds
3rd place: Gracie, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, 43.47 seconds
4th place: Squish, a smooth-coat Chihuahua, 40.36 seconds + a 5-second fault for a total time of 45.36 seconds
It’s so fun to watch these little dogs on the teeter-totter. It seems like it takes about 3 minutes for the high end to drop with the dog standing on it. It’s kind of like watching Donald Trump take that long elevator ride down when he announced his candidacy. If they jump off the teeter too early, it’s a 5-second fault.
And their little legs barely break stride to get over the eight-inch jumps. Keep in mind, the jump height is the only thing that changes between height classes, so the little dogs have to go through weave poles that are the same distance apart as for the big dogs and through tunnels that must seem very long and dark when you’re so little.
Just so you know, dogs compete in reverse order from how they placed in the preliminaries, so the 10th fastest dog in each class goes first, with the fastest dog from the prelims competing last at the finals. Theoretically, this means the runs should get faster and more exciting as we go through each class.
Next up: the 16-inch class.