All Dog's Trial report

I have video, but not sure it's worth loading. We did well, really. Gamblers was first and had weaves 15 feet away. Not something Spur and I have practiced lately. In fact, our weaves are not independent much at all, I know. If I am throwing a frisbee, he nails them and I can do jumping jacks while his weaves to the end, but he doesn't generalize that to other settings and won't go after his frisbee in the presence of strange dogs, so it isn't helpful at class. I may start trying his ball for the weaves, but we never seem to have time after training his dog walk and doing some obedience. And since my yard is under two feet of snow, there is no weaving at home right now. :P

Roscoe, weaves are a given, so it was do-able, but coming out of a tunnel entry that was also 15 feet away. Should have been do-able if I had held back and driven to the weaves. Instead I kept going and my motion drew him to me no matter how much flapping and yelling "WEAVE, WEAVE, WEAVE" to him. He ended up coming to me, then flipping around and getting the weaves, good little tiny dog!!! But, he crossed the refusal line and spun around, so was called for a refusal......"TWEET", whistle blew, but he got a good cheer from the crowd for going back and being a good boy!!! Then he layered a jump, which many dogs took, so he essentially got the gamble, sort of, good man!

Standard was nice from both dogs. Spur beat Roscoe by several seconds, which he SHOULD and by more than several seconds, but I am always pleased when he does beat him. Roscoe is a good boy, but hardly athletic. His time wasn't that fast because of some miss-cues. We are still working it out at trials. Our start line was OK, but I need to clean that up. He is doing well with me holding him and focusing him and then release and go, but I think I can be a little more calm and focused myself. I get all frantic and wierd and hyped and that doesn't help him any. I also need to work every SINGLE obstacle completely. I wish we had more verbals. I am trying to learn Silvia's cik and cap and am a complete failure with those verbals. I can never get them right, so those are essentially failed verbals. I did teach him "wrap" last summer and I am not sure why I couldn't use that word for cik and cap, both directions, just using my body cues to cue direction?

I know he needs more information. He guesses a lot and when he starts to guess he starts taking obstacles and making his own decisions. That's cool, in a way! But, not if we want to Q. LOL!!! I must get better about giving him his information often, early and clearly. Yesterday, we were a little off. He got his standard, good man and won his class, but it wasn't a fast time. I always check the championship times and Tiki the pap was 6 seconds faster. Tiki is a world team contender, if they can get a decent measuring. He's pretty fast. Last weekend's difference in standard = Tiki was only 2 seconds faster.

We left early after pairs. Scratched Spur from snooker and jumpers and Roscoe from snooker, so we only missed three runs. Spur ran clean in pairs, Roscoe wasn't entered. The conditions outside the facility were HORRIBLE. They used safe salt at the door, but not the parking lot and there was NO place to walk/potty the dogs. My dogs ended up SCREAMING in pain from the salt burning their paws and at one point I had a dog under each arm, totally miserable. Not sure why that wasn't happening to the other dogs!!!??? Maybe I just didn't see it. It SUCKED!!! The weather was coming in and I didn't want to drive in nasty, freezing rain. SO glad we did, it looked, sounded aweful. We ended up having time to have a nice snow shoe and the Pin Heads managed the whole time!! That was WELL worth it. The weather started shortly after we got in. I lit a fire and snuggled down, thinking of my friends who stayed and if they made it home safe. Read on facebook later about their misery traveling. Yikes!!! But, everyone home safe.