What can I say, but I am very lucky Breeze puts up with me, LOL.
STANDARD RUN
First the standard run-it was a challenging course, but we did not mess up on the challenging part, LOL. Figures. Here is the course-you can make it bigger by clicking on it if you want to.
I was sooo happy because even with the heat Breeze looked happy today, she did like the parts of this course where she could extend and open up a little bit. Breeze did EXACTLY what I told her, that was the good news and the bad news!
First obstacle was a tunnel, and I was sort of standing there trying to figure out how to handle it and not paying attention to my position when Breeze got out of the tunnel, I just was thinking so much about further down the line that I was not careful, I just took it for granted that it looked like a super easy entrance to the weaves. Well, of course I had not rotated around and in the video I spent a long time with my WHOLE body telling her to go to the dog walk, and good doggie that she is-that is EXACTLY what she did.
Of course when I messed that up, I was all a twitter sending her to the weaves, did some funky front cross and pulled her out of the weaves at the end, something she never does....she was mad and yelling at me, so I gathered myself and the rest of the run was fabulous, LOL. After the table there was a serpentine with a pull through to the tire and I was really worried about that but she did stellar.
She did not read the rear cross I did before the Aframe, so it was funny because it has never happened to us that she ended up laying facing in the opposite direction from where I was, so that looked pretty funny.
FREAKY CONTACT PROBLEM REVEALED
OK REALLY WEIRD thing that I have been noticing is that Breeze thinks when she is on my right side on the dog walk, she does a four on the floor contact. When she is on the left side she does a 2020. YEP, only my dog could be doing that. Well, I figure no big deal, but then I was talking to Daneen Fox who runs papillons and is on the world team, and she said well, that is ok if you make sure that is how it is every time, but how do I handle making sure her expected behavior is black and white, what if she gives me the four on the floor after I have been saying that yes the 2020 on that side is what I want, anyway, she gave me a lot to think about... and she warned me about the problems of doing retrains on the contacts, yea, I know about that ;-). So I am still not sure what to do about it. I am going to have to do a lot of thinking about what I want to do so I can be clear with Breeze and know what to reward and what not to reward, I guess we are going down a grey zone if I accept that, it might be really hard for me to remember what I expect on what side, ughghghghg, why do contacts have to be so hard??? I noticed this weirdness a few weeks ago, it started at trials, and I trained the four on the floor a couple of times a day for the last two weeks and thought we had it all squared away but when I walked today I thought, hummm, this is the left side and the 2020 side, wonder what is going to happen? Well, she did the 2020. Ahhhhhh, ADD IT TO THE LIST.
JUMPERS WITH WEAVES RUN
The JWW run, same song different verse. Breeze did fantastic, released slightly before I released her but I did release her while I was walking to my place...I sort of got stuck in the pin wheel walking too much so we both sort of stalled right before a jump and got a refusal, Breeze did a marvelous job with the weaves, we got through the next part and second to last jump I think my feet told her to go to the weaves, and I should have did a cross on the take off side and not the landing side of the jump, but, always easier to see that afterwards... but the run was happy and fast, and she did fantastic at the weaves and caught the entry without me having to have her check her speed, so I am WAY happy with that.
SO NO Q's but a happy dog who I think ran really well, I am pleased. I would not have minded giving better info to my dog and Qing, but we got the really hard parts of the courses we worried about so it could have been a whole lot worse.
THE HEAT AND DEALING WITH POOR HANDLING TAKES ITS TOOL ON A DOG:
SWEET GIRL SHE IS, I KNOW SHE WILL BE HAPPY TO RUN WITH ME AGAIN NEXT TIME, HOW GREAT ARE DOGS?
THANKS DENISE! YOU ROCK!
My Buddy Denise came to watch today, she filmed my runs and she brought me this great ribbon board that is to hang my ribbons on. No ribbons to add today, but hopefully soon ;-), so I put Breeze's title ribbons on it and can hang it in the hall by the dogs agility pictures. THANKS Denise!