Gracie's Pretty Awesome Weekend!

Gracie had another agility trial this past weekend.  This time it was a little closer to home and at one of our favorite venues: On The Run.  Last winter/spring Gracie did really well at OTR.  Switching to Soccerblast threw us off.  I'm glad the OTR season is back and would happily never trial anywhere else with Gracie again!

We entered two days with three runs each day: standard, time 2 beat, and jumpers.  They were in that order both days.

Saturday STD: I was nervous.  Our first run when we hadn't trialed here in quite a while.  Plus it was excellent standard which we still haven't qualified in.  The weave entry was weird with a sharp turn off the dog walk to the weaves.  Gracie missed the entry but fixed it on our second try.  Between nerves and needing to redo the weaves, I forgot my front cross after the weaves and my impromptu rear cross sent Gracie around the chute.  Oops!  The rest of the course was clean, but I almost messed her up in a couple places.  The good news: she did the table!  With no sniffing!

After that run I knew I needed to focus and be there for my dog in the ring.  So I told Gracie, "You get your weaves and I won't screw you up.  Deal?"  That seemed to work for most the rest of the weekend.  I also thought this a good time to work on visualizing.  So between walking and running the courses I found somewhere to sit and close my eyes and visualize the course and my plan.  I definitely need to keep that up!

Saturday T2B: Sat. was all about sharp turns to the weave poles.  Gracie got it this time, and I remembered my front cross after the weaves.  I did find a spot in this course and one other over the weekend, that I didn't get to where I wanted to be for a front cross and had to switch to a rear (which I had also walked and was prepared for).  It worked out both times, but it's something I need to look at closer.  Gracie qualified with 5 points!

Saturday Jumpers: Jumper went very well except for one little detour to go sniff something.  No refusal incurred, just wasted time.  The straight away at the end was fun!  Gracie qualified with half a second to spare, so no MACH points this time. 

Sunday Standard: Much less nervous and much more focused today.  The run overall went really well.  Gracie even did a down on the table!  We just got one little refusal after the chute.  She came out of the chute looking at me and I didn't give her enough of a cue to get her looking forward to the next jump so she went past it.  Had I run on the other side of the chute it might have worked better, but I was worried about crashing into Gracie.  Oh well, another thing to work on.

Sunday Time 2 Beat: We really do like T2B!  It was a really nice run!  Gracie got 7 points, and when she's up against all those speedy border collies like at this trial, I think that's pretty impressive!  Gracie is now 3 Qs and 102 points away from her T2B title!

Sunday Jumpers:  One tiny call off in this run, otherwise it was just beautiful!  Gracie qualified and got 4 MACH points!

Gracie did an amazing job this weekend!  She qualified in 4 out of 6 runs! 

I'm so proud of her!  Also, my mom deserves a very big thank you for helping us at every run.  The ring gate area can get rather crowded, so I don't know if we would have made it without her!  Unfortunately I missed the deadline for the Jan. OTR trial, so we may not be back there until Feb.  I am thinking about trying a USDAA trial there though.  I've still got some time to decide on that.  Got to get back to some rally and maybe some obedience for her too!  Happy agility!