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| Costume Contest |
I'm not sure if the weekend went as well as it did because of my attitude towards the trial or because of all the training we did this summer. Maybe it was a little of both. I went into the trial thinking that we would just have fun as this was going to be our last trial.... and for once we did have fun. No meltdowns from me and we even managed to get 2 qualifying runs (Q's for the non agility folks out there)!
Saturday we ran 4 courses. Our gamble course was awesome.... We had lots of points in the opening and Cookie stuck with me. We only missed the final obstacle in the final gamble. I was really happy with the final gamble Cookie came back to me and I was able to send him over the line back out to find the second obstacle. It was a nice start to the weekend!
Our second and third runs of the day were standard runs. As always he struggled with the table. Not sure what the deal is with the table there. We are successful in practice but for some reason I can't get him to do it there. A couple ideas I have... make the table harder in class so that he is set up to fail. Also, I am thinking of seeing if I can hook up with the Training Troop group in the spring to practice with them a couple times.... As you can see from the video of our Standard Run he's coming along nicely.
Our last run of the day was a Jumpers run... Half way through the course I was thinking "OMG we might actually do this!" I was so afraid I was going to get lost and mess it up because I was so excited. I was even more excited when we finished the run and I found out that Shannon had taped our run. You can check out the video of our Jumpers Run. I love Shannon's YEAH at the end of the video :-)
Sunday we had 2 more standard runs. They were much of the same... no deal with the table. The other thing I really need to work on is weave entrances. Not Cookie's entrances but mine. I noticed lots of times I set him up funny so he misses the entrance to the weave poles. Once I back him up and start with with a proper entrance he gets them no problem.
Our very last run of the weekend was a Snooker run. I love snooker... every trial we go to I always think that is the run that we might Q that weekend. This was a really nice snooker course and Cookie had been running well all weekend so, I felt pretty confident going into the run. As you can see from the video of our Snooker Run we also got a Q in Snooker. I was thrilled to come away from the trial with 2 Q's and some other really nice runs (minus the damn table).
You see, Cookie only has one other Q in our agility career. The very first trial we went to in the summer of 2011 he got a gamble Q. So to get 2 in one weekend especially when I wasn't even thinking we would get any was pretty awesome. We have been practicing steady since joining Go Dog Go a couple years ago and trialling very regular since summer 2011. We are ready for a break... and I am simply too fat to chase my dog around right now :-)
Lastly, a quick thanks to all the Go Dog Go gals for all their help. I know I wouldn't have gotten this far if I was with a different group. Plus, you guys have helped me through lots of meltdowns and tough times in the last year... See ya in the spring trials!
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| Doesn't he look thrilled about his costume?!? |
