NADAC agility trial
I wasn't sure what dog I was going to have today as we headed to the NADAC trial. Vito's still been pretty flat at home as he adjusts to his prozac although he does seem to be doing a bit better.
Open Regular - E
Um wow. Vito was nuts. Even at the warm up jump Vito was so focused on the toy in my hand that he wasn't even going over the damn jump. When he did finally take it he was still looking at my hand so knocked the bar, twice. We were the 3rd dog in the ring so I said screw it and headed over.
The dogwalk was 2nd and it was a straight approach and straight exit to the tunnel. Vito falls off for the 3rd trial in a row. Why does he keep doing this?!! Thank God he wasn't hurt in any way and wanted to continue. We redo the dogwalk and he leaps it. Then we proceed to knock what felt like every single bar on the course. He misses his weave entrance but then dives back in, hitting the poles hard and popping back out. I stop to ask him what the hell he is doing and Vito crazily jumps on me. Then he does a one hit on the aframe descent to land in the yellow. At least he seemed to be having a blast! Definitely not the dog I was expecting!
Touch n Go- Q
A nice smooth course and we we went from Vito's worst run ever to one of his best. Great running aframes and dogwalk and Vito ran over 6yps which is not common for us.
Open Chances- NQ
The weaves are 2nd and we again don't collect for them. I end up reattempting 3 times before Vito gets them and by then I'm not where I was planning to be. Vito looks like he's going to send out but then doubts himself and I've already ran out of room and stupidly turned. We have fun finishing the course together.
Novice Weavers- Q
Not pretty but we did it. Vito doesn't collect for the weaves as the 2nd obtacle but directs well around the course and does his 2nd set of weaves great. The last set Vito misses the entrance, then gets it but pops out when I praise him, and again needs a 3rd attempt. Our title, but clearly we still need a lot of work on weaving in a trial.
Novice Jumpers- Q
We finally get our first Q in jumpers. Nice course and Vito was feistier at the start line again. I screw up in the beginning but thankfully Vito pulls off the off course. He also didn't seem to like my rear cross at the end as he slowed down to focus on me.
Lance
Lance got to play in novice chances and open weavers as we're still retraining contacts. Novice chances was very easy and we got our title. He also collected just fine for the weaves which were the 2nd obstacle and normally he blows by them in the beginning of a course. Weavers I messed up and didn't support a hoop but Lance again got all his weaves :)
In the video of Vito's runs it looked like:
= *you* ran faster in the first run -- Regular with he all off the dogwalk & knocked bars & missed poles; your dog did not appear to need anymore arousal [the center of the bell curve being optimal for accuracy & speed]
= Vito seems to lose his footing on the dogwalk; what has been the specifics of falling off on trials? which run of the day/weekend? what board is he slipping off [this time it was the middle/flas board]? where on the course is the dogwalk [early or late]? There may a bit of a pattern you can help him with. The first run of the weekend may be Vito figuring out the surface/footing of the equipment. [No teeter in NADAC so no comparison of board performance.]
= You appeared more deliberate in the Jumper run so Vito knew exactly were to go -- except you were out of position [too far ahead]for that rear cross at the end so had to sloooow down which attracted your dog's attention.
He looked he was glad to be there in the ring with you!
Good job Lance on his weave entrances.
Lynnda L
PS: Errors on course can be tricky to recover from in the 30 seconds you are in the ring.... :)
It looks like he was having fun :) That's important! Great job on the Qs
He certainly is having fun!! The next runs looked great though. :)
Whoa -- he sure was wound for that first run!! Gorgeous touch and go run -- looks like so much fun. Love that Jumpers run too, nice distance and so smooth.
Ok, I'm sure it wasn't particularly fun at the time, but I LOVED Vito's first run (except for the falling off the dog walk part)!! I laughed and laughed! So he is feeling a bit better then?
While his first run was just ridiculous I was really happy with it. Much better then the flat dog I was expecting :) He is doing a bit better but is still pretty drugged up. I can get him excited with toys though and he is able to maintain his drive much better now. Still is pretty blah without a toy though. Better then last week!
LOL on your comment about Jackal's trick. I'm trying not to give anything away on our freestyle routine, but basically the trick involved both paws separately and I'm teaching him a voice cue of left/right so he knows which paw to use. Sorry for being so confusing. :) I'll probably go back and edit it to make it a little easier to understand. The main thing is I'm just so excited that he's listening to voice cues because he has a tendency to ignore them. :D