BREEZE GOT HER FIRST TITLE, she is now CP's Blew Breeze TN-N, whoo hooo!!! It is a tunnlers title, but we will take it. She has done three nadac trials and they only have one tunnelers course in each of our trials...so she has Q'd in all three. HEY, at least we can be consistent in something, TUNNELERS!
So I had worked on all day on making her happier at the trial, this was last run of the day, I got all confused because everyone was in an uproar trying to get the trial done and someone yelled to be set, I thought I heard the judge say good luck, she was way far away, and so I took my leash off, well, apparently she had not said it, so I got yelled at because of that, which starting things off bad. I chose not to even tell Breeze to stay because she had been stressing at the start line so bad, so she took off way before I would have liked, so I started off behind, LOL. The only thing I really would have liked to do better was to keep running straight into her line out of the second to last tunnel until she committed to the last tunnel, then start heading for the end, there was no need I had to worry about getting to the end it was a tunnel, what I did was take off for the end before she committed to the last tunnel, thinking I could push her out with my arm, but using body motion....how much better would that have been?
SOOOO back to the first of the day. Yesterday Breeze had stopped playing with her ball before the second run, and was not prancing to the gate. Hummm, she did not want to down at the start line and she was sniffing, which is unusual for her.
Next run she was walking slowly and not pulling to the gate, and would not take food, YIKES, and then would not stay at the start line and was really worried when I tried to leave her. She ran slow the first three obstacles and then got happy and excited as the run went on. She would not play in the yard a couple of hundred feet from the agility field.
So I went home and thought what am I going to do? I knew it was a start line thing, and possibly the gate area, and I knew I had to change the picture for my dog. So today I went to the trial way before I needed to and several times during the day I went and got Breeze out of the crate, got super good food and bagged the toys she was not playing with anyway, took her to warm up, did the practice jump and took her to the gate, did a lot of tricks, gave her a lot of treats and did everything like I was ready to run. I went and looked at the board, we stood in the throng of people waiting (we of course made sure we were not in anyone elses way or bothering any other dogs...). Then I would be happy and excited and then go and put her back in the crate. I would even wait until there were not people right waiting to go in and I would do some tricks at the gate opening. So by the third time Breeze would play in the field again and was pulling to go in the ring. So I know we will have to work more on making the start stay less stressful.....but I feel like we made some good progress, and good thing we did this show to find out that there are more things to work on. I also made sure there was someone at the end of the run with ROAST BEEF, something I think Breeze will only get at the end of a run. Anyway, I think we got some EXCELLENT work done at this trial.
So our other run of the day was a jumpers.
Breeze was happy going in the ring, WIN #1, she downed at the start line and looked happy about it WIN #2, then she did NOT hold her start line stay, not a surprise and not something I was going to really stress on at this point-I felt I had bigger fish to worry about and that was the stress at the start line, and so far that goal was being accomplished. That said, check out the line of jumps all in a straight line. What happens with a border collie and a straight line of jumps, THEY GO FAST, and what happens with a really slow handler......THEY GO FAST WITHOUT THEIR HANDLERS-leaving their slow handlers in the dust, LOL. So anyway, I got her around until the jump before the first tunnel entrance and I knew I had to get over for my front cross, and she was so happy and fast, and so I just decided to go with it and keep her happy and moving. We did not get a Q but we got a second.
So the final tally:
1-first place and Q in Standard-my whole reason for entering.
A big ol' E in the second standard run-but we got our contacts,
a first but no Q in the next jumpers,
the next day a second in jumpers with No Q,
and then a second and a Q in Tunnelers WHICH GOT US OUR TITLE.
We got some great work done in training, some areas we need to work in, I got to sit and talk with the nicest people ever that talked to me a lot about their border collies and the breeder they got them from-so a good connection for the future....
And I have to send our a HUGE THANKS to Denise and her Mom for coming to support me, cheer me on and tape my runs on Sunday afternoon. That was so great of them to come, and it really made me feel TERRIFIC.