Gracie's novice STD run was right at the beginning of the day. It was a nice course, so easy she could run the first half all by herself as I struggled to keep up. Gracie stresses very very high! She was nervous and her nerves turned into speed. I knew she was nervous to start with as she wouldn't sit at the start line. She jumped over the dog walk contact, not like her but not surprising. Did anyone there hear the big gasp shortly after 8am? Yeah, that was Gracie flying off the top of the A-frame. I could not believe it. I was shaking my head at the thought of the moment for hours later. There was no sign of injury so we continued. After her flight she jumped on and off the table, no fault called but I know it happened (again not really surprised). The table and the weaves, which were next, allowed us to calm down and collect ourselves (we needed all 3 tries to get the weaves). She finished the course beautifully with a big cheer when she did the teeter perfectly. It was an interesting run, but my goal for the day was to get her in the building and to each ring without issue, and in that we succeeded! We took a good walk after this run, I was certain her acrobatics required it. Another sign of nerves from Gracie - she wouldn't pee on our walk.
Gidget's JWW run was next. We took a very chill approach to entering the ring. Instead of trying to get her pumped up, I leaned back and relaxed talking to Gidget and telling her we were just out to have fun. She looked nervous while we were waiting, but once we got going she looked great! She's no speed demon in agility, but she was happy! She wasn't poky or concerned, she just ran! She did run right past a jump, but we're still getting used to our new routine. We'll deal with how to fix mess-ups without losing her good attitude soon. I did also forget a cross and lead her to a wrong jump. Oops! I was pretty darn happy with her run overall!
The STD ring was running behind and the JWW ring was running ahead, which meant ring conflict for me! They kindly bumped Gidget up so that we were done just in time for me to walk novice JWW and run Gracie. Gidget's STD run started nicely besides a bad handling decision on my part. Without a lead out I wasn't in position to send her out to the third jump so she ran past it. Starting on the other side with a cross after 2 perhaps or a pull to the correct tunnel entrance would have worked better. Someday we'll have a lead out again, but we have other stuff to continue working on right now. Gidget did the teeter nicely, weaved with a good attitude though she skipped a couple poles, but then we got to the A-frame. She wouldn't take it, I didn't push her to take it and continued on to keep her pumped up. She stayed pumped up and I ended up timing a front cross badly leading to another refusal from the judge (I thought he was a lot more strict with refusals than many judges I've seen, though it was a bad cross). The jumps went smoothly but then we hit the dog walk. She stepped on then hopped off (ugh!) so we moved on to end well. No more chute issues for us! Just plenty of other issues.
Gracie's novice JWW was last. It was quite a long wait for Gracie and she calmed down significantly! She had even peed when I took the girls out before Gidget's run! Gracie sat and gave me a shake before at the start line (yay!). She had nowhere near as much speed as her STD run, but I wasn't about to complain about that. She did a wonderful job on the course, even getting her weaves in the first try! She did have to go say hi to the judge and his strange hat but got right back on track. We finish with a 3rd place Q!
The girls and I had a really good day! Sure, only one true Q, but there were too many good things happening for both dogs to care about those. The only thing I'm going to change with Gracie is to add some exercise before her first run of the day to try and reign in her focus and a little bit of her speed, just enough so I can keep up or at least be able to get into position to direct her. Gidget's next issue to address is the dog walk and A-frame. My theory is that she's worried she's going to do the teeter again even though she does the teeter well now. The A-frame was before the teeter at her last trial and the dog walk after, she did the A-frame then but not the teeter. Not sure what I can do for this issue besides adding value for all her contacts. Advice would be appreciated.
Only 4 trials left for us for the year. One CPE for Gracie and 3 AKC for both girls. I may add in a 4th AKC trial for Gidget but I haven't decided yet. Happy agility!
Oh my goodness, she did sprout some wings!!! that first run of Gracie's looks fantastic!!!!
ReplyDeleteExercise might help her but your goal shouldn't be to reign in her speed even a tiny bit! I see distance handling and lots of "go on" work in her future :)
I do want her to have speed, but I want her to be in control too. She was not in control (hers or mine) for the first half of that run. We will be building our distance work as much as we can, the new bigger building should help with that too!
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