I didn't plan well for the gate area for our first run. It was our first try at Exc STD. I saw a dog free spot in the chairs so we went and sat down, but we were soon surrounded by dogs. One in front of us play growling with it's handler, one wanting to walk right past us, one next to us, and one or two behind us. Ugh! We sat there for a lot longer than I thought we would with the stress building. When it got close to our turn I ask Gracie to jump into my arms so I could carry her past another dog. Of course Miss Dramatic decided I was carrying her wrong and yelped just before I was going to set her down. Once we were actually in line, a dog ahead of us came running out of the ring! More ugh! We finally made it out to the ring, phew! Considering the stress Gracie did pretty well. She touched the contact zone on the A-frame but didn't stick her "bottom," didn't complete the weaves, and ran past the last jump. The first two I blame on stress and lack of proofing for stress, the last one was mostly my handling.
Exc JWW was up next. I planned the gate area much better. I had my mom right with me as a helper and waited until much closer to Gracie's turn to get her out. We just had to hop right into line along the wall, wait a run or two, and then we were up! I think I got to close to her while she was weaving and she popped out near the end, so NQ. I did have to call her off the triple and she seemed to be in the second tunnel a lot longer than she should have been, then she almost ran out of the ring at the end (thank goodness for a strong recall!). Minor issues in an otherwise very nice run. I even got a blind cross in there!
So no Qs on Sat. but if you could get Qs for the gate area, we got one before JWW.
Sun. started with STD again and I implemented the same plan in the gate area and it went very smoothly. Unfortunately I almost set us up wrong at the start line which threw me off so I ended up pulling her off the second jump. Oops! The rest of the course went great! She almost did "bottom" with the help of a front cross after the A-frame, she sat on the table (normally she prefers to stay standing), she got all her weaves on her second try, and she took a glance at the judge but came right back and finished the course with me. Another nice, almost there, run. The video is in black and white because I forgot to change my camera settings back after taking pictures of the score sheets.
Last run of the weekend was beautiful! It felt so good and people said it looked good too! Unfortunately my camera batteries died in the middle of it! It was perfect and earned Gracie her AXJ! Made the whole weekend worth it! Can't wait to go back in a couple weeks.
Things to work on: figure out how to proof for stress for 2o2o on the A-frame and the weaves.
The other day I sent in registrations for AKC agility at Soccerblast in Aug. and La Crosse in Sept. (we'll be in La Crosse in Oct. and Nov. too). Gracie is going to take two tries at Rally (WCRL) at the end of the month and hopefully get her RL1 title. Gidget is going to take one try at CDSP obedience to see how we're coming along. (Gracie Rally on Sat. and Gidget obedience on Sun.) Lots of fun coming up!
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