A Very Happy Trial

The girls and I participated in the GSD Club trial at On The Run yesterday.  We had a great day even if it wasn't entirely successful.

Gidget's Masters JWW course was up first.  She ran beautifully for the first 11 obstacles.  It was just awesome!  Then we got to the weaves where I must not have decelled enough and she ran past the entry.  I got her going properly, but she still skipped a pole near the end.  After the weaves was supposed to be a jump followed by a turn, but all Gidget saw was the straight line of jumps towards the exit.  She went for her preferred course and then stood by the gate staring at me like I was crazy for not finishing the course with her.  It was pretty funny.  I got her back too me and we almost finished the course nicely, she ran around the last jump and back jumped it.  Oh well, we had fun.  Here's the video, it doesn't show the look she was giving me while standing at the gate, maybe the photographers caught that!

Gidget's Exc STD course was so pretty!  She didn't take the off course tunnel at the end of the dog walk, and she took the teeter with confidence!  Once again she missed the weave entry, but otherwise the run was wonderful.  Apparently our next mission is to really get her weave entries solid.  One issue after another!  I will not take her teeter performance for granted though and will continue to work that the way we have been this last month.  As for her weaves, we'll have to work out a proofing program.  I have some ideas but I may be searching out a book on proofing soon.  Here is an extremely short video of Gidget's weaves in her STD run:

Gracie's runs were absolutely beautiful.  Her JWW run was her fastest run ever, and probably would have been faster had I not gotten in her way a bit on a couple of my front crosses.  Her STD run was just as awesome (her fastest STD run ever I believe).  At one point where I thought she might consider the dog walk instead of the chute, she didn't hesitate for a second and took the correct obstacle, leaving me a tiny bit behind (this worked out because a rear cross was needed shortly after).  There was no hesitation at the weaves in either run like last time.  I had such a good time running with her and I'm so proud of her!  Her JWW run earned her her OAJ too!  Can't believe she's going to be in Exc JWW!  Here are the videos:

 

The only thing I'd like to change is how we end our runs.  I feel I need to get a hold of her as soon as we're done in case she notices the dog lining up on the other side of the ring.  Safety first!  I have been grabbing her collar without noticeable issue in the past, but yesterday she cowered some when I reached for her collar.  Cowering is not a normal response for her when I reach for her collar, but I don't want anything negative to be associated with her runs so I may start putting her jump-into-my-arms trick into use.  That way I'll have a hold of her and hopefully there won't be a single negative thought anywhere near our agility runs!

Lots of stuff coming up in the next few weekends:
Apr. 6: Gidget's 3rd AKC Obedience trial
Apr. 14: Gidget's 1st CDSP Obedience trial and Gracie's first APDT Rally trial!
Apr. 20: Our next AKC Agility trial!

Gidget is also on a waitlist for an agility trial on Apr. 13.  I don't know where we are on the list, but I don't expect to get into the trial.  Still going to watch though because my mom and Slammer got in!  Happy agility!

Goals

I've been thinking a lot about my future goals for myself and my dogs.  I'm doing a lot of things with them right now (well, seems like a lot to me) and I want to make sure we're accomplishing things and improving, not just doing the same old thing all the time.  So I'm going to list some goals for the year here and how I hope to accomplish them.  I'll throw some long term goals in there too.

Gidget:
-Qualify in Exc STD.  Just thinking one Q at a time here.  I'm trying to get Gidget on a teeter just about every day.  Whether it's the one at school or the little practice one here at home.  I need to find some open ring time at other locations too so Gidget can get rewards on these new teeters that seem too freak her out.  It's good that she loves the familiar teeters so much, but that makes it difficult to figure out what exactly her issue is.  Trying new teeters with treats I'd hope would help with that.  At school yesterday I was trying to work on tunnel/dog walk discriminations but Gidget kept sneaking away to take the teeter! 

-Get her MXJ!  Gidget needs 6 more Mas JWW Q's for her MXJ.  This is very doable, especially since she loves JWW!  Our two JWW runs so far this year have had 1 or 2 little things wrong.  I really need to focus and support Gidget so that we can run clean, in STD, JWW, and in class!

-Earn Gidget's first obedience title and then really get to work on the Open skills.  I've got a good list of trials we can sign up for so I just need to plan ahead money wise.  Then we need to attend open ring time whenever we can right before the trial.  I want Gidget to have lots of fun in the ring so that when I'm more nervous and don't have treats, Gidget will have that history of fun to keep her going!  Also want to check out CDSP Obedience so Gidget can get treats in the ring while competing.  Retrieving is where we're having the most trouble as far as the open skills go.  Gidget was doing great for awhile but now pretty much refuses to retrieve.  We may need to start over again. 

-Tricks- I want to make use of the tricks class we took.  I got a lot of new ideas and revamped some old ones.  I'd like to finish (or at least clean up) the tricks we've learned so far and learn more!  I'm fine not going too crazy with tricks.  I'm quite happy just having learned a few more and how to better work with Gidget.  I'll eventually make a video of what we learned in the tricks class.

-Long term- I'd love to go to Nationals with Gidget some day!  Have to accomplish the first goal above first.

Gracie:
-Get Gracie into Exc in both STD and JWW, maybe even Mas JWW.  This means getting Gracie comfortable trialing no matter where we go.  She did great at our last trial so I hope that continues.  Just gotta get that weaving in trials thing down which I think will come along with the comfort.

-Start trialing in Rally.  There are a couple APDT trials on my radar which I think would be a good place for us to start since she can get treats in the ring!  I still have to check out the location for these trials since I've never been there and not all entry ways work well for Gracie.  Then I have an AKC Rally trial in mind in the fall to start trialling there!

-Continue doing well around other dogs no matter where we are or what we're doing.  I am so proud of the progress we've made.  Gracie almost never has outbursts at other dogs at home now, and home is still the hardest place for her to see other dogs.  We saw 6 dogs when we were outside this morning (we usually see no more than 1 or 2).  That was rough on both of us, but we managed.  Gracie was even able to do her JWW run at our last trial reasonably well after a curious sheltie got too far into her bubble (maybe a foot away).  So we just need to keep this up!

-Tricks- More new tricks!  Nothing specific here, just keep trying new things.  Maybe finally get that bow figured out.

-Long term- MACH10!  Or whatever number is realistic for how much trialing I can do.  Something big!

Ok, that's all I've got for now.  I'll let you know how these go!  Happy training!