Gidget earned her Open Standard (OA) title on September 10, 2011. It took 7 tries to get the 3 Q's needed for the title. On March 12, 2012, Gidget earned her first Excellent Standard Q. Two years and four months later, Gidget earned the last two Q's she needed for her Excellent Standard (AX) title. That's right, this weekend was so awesome that we earned a title we've been working towards for almost 3 years, and it only took us 23 tries! Plus we Q'd in two other runs for a total of 4 Q's out of 5 runs!
I entered Gidget in T2B on Sat. for something fun and that allows for some weave practice if needed. We hadn't entered a T2B since fall of 2012 when Gidget had teeter issues. I'm glad we gave it another try! Gidget started off a little pokey, but jumped into gear after the weaves and finished with 7 points. A good way to start the weekend!
We had to wait quite a while for our next run. The trial organization was a little messy so we didn't even know for sure which class we would run next. It ended up being JWW. Overall it was a nice run, but Gidget popped out of the weaves so NQ.
Last for the day was the dreaded excellent standard. I'd been working on staying calm and focused, making sure I took the time to visualize the course. I didn't want my brain to fall out again like a couple weeks ago. I had a really good feeling about this run before we started, and my good feeling was right! We made it through the course for a 1st place Q! Thank you so much to Sarah for the video and to Mary for emailing it to me!
On to day 2! No T2B today, we got to sleep in instead! We actually could have slept later, we got to the trial around 10am and didn't run until after noon! Considering the wait, Sunday went almost as well as Saturday. I say almost only because our runs were just a little messy, but we made it through!
In JWW I kept getting in Gidget's way for front crosses. I guess I really need to either figure out my timing with Gidget or where I should do front crosses and where I shouldn't. Gidget stuck with me through my sloppiness for a Q and 9 MACH points!
We had maybe 20 minutes between our JWW and STD runs. I didn't even get to walk the STD course again before running it. Thankfully I'd been working on my visualizing skills all weekend. This run was a little sloppy too. Gidget's favorite thing is going into a tunnel under the A-frame like in the STD course on Sat. She thought it had to be there again for sure. Thankfully that didn't lead to any faults and she came back on course, though looked a little disappointed. Later I tried to get a front cross in right after a rear cross which led to a super wide turn for Gidget. Again no faults, and we made it to the end. Who would think we could get 2 standard Q's in a row after such a dry spell and earn Gidget's title?! It was so exciting!
So now both my little rockstars are fully in Masters and can start earning their QQ's. Hopefully the MACH journey won't be too much longer than the AX journey! After this weekend, I really feel good about getting there someday!
I did learn a couple good things this weekend. One being that I need to remember to focus and visualize before Gidget's runs, just like I do for Gracie's runs. The other being how I handle Gidget's weave poles. I realized in Gidget's JWW run on Sat. that as I saw her slowing down in the poles I started thinking, "Oh no! She's slowing down! She's going to pop out!" In her STD run later, my thoughts were more along the lines of, "I believe she can get all her weaves!" I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice or not, but I think it made a difference. I also made sure my shoulders were turned toward the poles. On Sun. I really did make sure that my thoughts and my shoulders were completely supporting Gidget in getting all her weave poles, and she did! Though she got really slow, she didn't pop out. That is definitely something I'm going to remember for future trials.
That's all for now (I know, just one trial to update on this time!). Rally and obedience trials at the end of the month and another agility trial the first weekend in Aug. Happy agility!
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