Rough Trials

This winter has not been especially great for Zumi's training!  Ice, fridgid temps, then snow dumps.  Excuses.

Obedience/Rally

Two weekends ago Zumi went to our CDSP obedience/ WCRL rally trial on Saturday.  2 runs in Open obedience, 1 run in rally.  

The first obedience run started a bit rough.  Not horrible, but a bit distracted on setups and some moving away from me.  We qualified, but it just wasn't a connected run.  

Oh and we had a rethrow again on the ROH jump that I didn't know about until we were waiting forever until Zumi finally couldn't take it and left me.  That's when I looked up and saw the judge was in the process of picking up the dumbbell.  She doesn't handle rethrows well to begin with, and having waited SO long with trying hard to not scream or leave early was just thrown out with her anticipation.

But overall I thought she had to poop. And I was right in that as soon as we went out she did poop.  

Then that didn't explain that her next run, rally, had similar qualities of meh heeling.  Not really distracted, just laggy.  

Her last run of obedience she seemed better.  Much more connected with me, more energy for sure.  But we didn't retrieve.  Not once. Zumi left me to walk several steps on the 1st retrieve.  So I called her back and was going to move on but the judge let me do it again.  Same thing, so I moved on without releasing Zumi.  Retrieve over the high, essentially my 3rd throw in the ring was the same thing.  I think it was a combination of a stressy day for her plus the added rehearsal int he first trial of leaving me without any cue on my part.

The bad news/good news is that I've been working on it with her this last week and have been able to replicate it.  If I let the dumbbell hit a wall so it makes an apparently exciting sound, she will start walking towards it.  So I've been having her lie down, I pick it up, and then come back to give her cookies and do some heeling before trying again. Not sure if that's a good approach for her or not!  I dont' want to create more stress with the exercise, but the same time I need it very clear that moving does not lead to a release....  Overall I'm trying to have more easy short reps than the ones I challenge her on.

UKI Agility

Then last weekend Zumi had a UKI trial.  And we had more issues with her startline/release.  This particular location seems very tough for her as I think all of her startline issues have started here.  This time it was worse as while she mostly actually stayed put (still difficulties with the initial stay after lining up, before I left), she ran around the first jump in her last run Saturday and 2 of her 3 runs on Sunday.  While Zumi has been known to do that, it's usually in a particular setup where I need to be at an angle on the lead out vs an approach like these courses had.

So not a great month so far!!!

I am curious and a bit scared to see how she will do the next 2 weekends. No trials this week. But I did end up entering her in an AKC obedience trial back on our home turf this coming weekend.  And then the following wekeend is USDAA at the location she usually stays well at!