Three Weeks to Trial

The morning sky over the agility field at The Canine Ranch

It was a gray morning in Waleska at 7:50 when we arrived for our hour of agility field rental.  The dew was heavy enough to soak through my shoes into my socks before I could get from the car to the field.  Thankfully the hard pack sand mixture on the field provides good footing for dog and handler, so we both are able to navigate the obstacles safely.

He has come so far since my good friend and trainer, Joan Meyer asked me if he'd be ready for the Triune trial (Labor Day weekend) back in March or April.  I decided to sign up for a class to see if he'd like it.  And so it began.  I can't believe we have only been training since April and here we are three weeks away from our first trial.

I took this little clip yesterday evening when I began focusing on driving him into the weaves after a series of three jumps.  It was fun to teach him to gather himself and accurately find the entrance to the poles.  He is a pretty jumper and he gains ground in accuracy every time we work. 

 



Today when I introduced the tire jump to him he picked it up pretty quickly, until I included it in a sequence of jump, jump, tire.  All of a sudden he lost it, obstacle fail.  I haven't figured it out just yet, but I think it is his association of the obstacle to the activity.  Up until today, the act of jumping is typically associated with something that has bars across it.  I think the tire jump just looked so different to him, that he didn't pick up the jumping through it action.  Somehow, I'll  have to figure out what I need to do with this problem by the time we get back out to the field next Sunday. The solution will come, it's a small train the trainer issue. 

 

I am challenged in working with him in all venues (herding, obedience and agility) by the way my brain works.  I am a thinker, often times I'm an over thinker.  When my mind begins to race to contemplate a problem that we just encountered, or a handling issue or learning curve point for me, he loses focus and begins to offer whatever is handy that he is pretty certain would be right, regardless of whatever may be going on in my brain.  At once such moment today, he trotted off to the dog walk and struck a pose while he waited for me to get it together.  I couldn't resist the photo opportunity.

 

Voluntary dog walk while he waits for me to figure out a handling problem

  

I wanted to work poles with him, but they had twelve setup and I had wandered over to see if they could easily be separated into six .  Again, I was taking too much time to think when he walked up behind me, entered the poles and gave me twelve.  He missed a couple toward the middle, but his entrance and exit were really nice.  Of course I wanted to know if that was a fluke or not, so I setup a sequence and sent him to the poles and to my delight he gave me twelve without missing any.  So, I moved my sequence around so he came the other direction to the poles and he nailed them again, not once but twice more. 

 

It is fun to be at this place where you run into a snag, look at each other and figure out how to make it work.  Love my boy!