Saturday, December 6, 2014

CPE Agility @ Flexible Flyers

Today I had both the girldogs running CPE Agility at the Flexible Flyer's December trial.  This place has dirt footing, but since Perri ran pretty well there with some minimal sassing a month ago, I was feeling okay about it.  But Perri did not forget what happened on the dirt footing at Dream Park two weeks ago!

She started out great in Fullhouse until about the 7th obstacle, which happened to be a tunnel.  She exploded into very intense poodle zoomies and did huge loops around the ring while barking, pouncing and growling at me!  I tried to reengage her once and she got close enough to me to slam into a pounce and bark at me, then she took off again.  I thanked the judge and walked towards the ring gate, and I will be honest - I wasn't happy!  I realized that I was at a cross roads.  I was not willing to tolerate this behavior in the ring.  Standard Poodle zoomies are absolutely legendary.  Perri was entered in three more classes: Jackpot, Standard and Snooker.  I could continue trying to run her, or I could back my expectations up.  I of course chose the latter.  Jackpot I took her leash off, set her up just like any other run, and we did three jumps and I ended the run and praised her lavishly and fed her our special treats at the crate.  Standard I did a jump, the dog walk ... and she zoomed up.  I told her sternly to focus and to do the tunnel, she did and I praised her and put her leash on.  The judge told me to do a few more jumps, so we did.  I got carried away and did a tunnel, picked the leash up and finished with a jump.  I apologized later, I forgot that you can't do tunnels with a leash on in FEO.   Snooker was last and I decided to throw caution to the wind and run for a Q.  I got some sass but I kept working through it.  At the end of the video Perri goes absolutely wild and starts barking at me.  At that point we had enough points to Q, but I walked away from her towards the gate.  Nope.  She stopped almost immediately and ran after me and when I turned to her, I pointed to the table and she hopped up onto it with her tail whirling.  At least we got to end on a positive note and have a meatball party?  Oof, exhausting day.  Difficult choices.   I feel very certain she is struggling to run on dirt footing.  Next weekend we are on Sprint Turf, so I will be very interested to see what happens there!



Molly was absolutely amazing today, which isn't normal for her on dirt footing!
We started with Fullhouse and she was a powerhouse and earned 40 points and was just flying with me and doing everything I asked.  I wish I had it on video, it felt great!
Jackpot was Non Traditional.  You were required to do the double jump at some point in your opening.  This allowed you to "double" up to four obstacles in your closing.  You had get that double jump in the opening and you had to double at least two obstacles in the closing.  I planned on fooling in the weave poles, but the buzzer went off during my bad send so I wanted to follow through with Molly and support her poles at the trial.   We ended up doubling a single bar jump, the weaves, a tunnel and the two-jump combo that was worth 5 points.   This was our last Jackpot Q towards our C-ATCH!  Another class finished!


Standard was next with a jump and the dogwalk and you had to either front cross at the down ramp or pull your dog off of the off course tunnel and onto the correct jump that was lateral to the dogwalk.  Not a strong maneuver for Molly and I.  I couldn't lead out because of the first jump being at a 90 degree angle to the Walk, so I had to almost run with her.  I was so far behind on the dog walk.  She felt me catch up to her and slow down....there was that horrible tension between us...and she did like she always does when I put that pressure on her.  She jumped the down ramp and took the off course tunnel.  Her weaves were beautiful and fast, her Aframe I ran with her and she went into the contact zone with no issue or hesitation.  Until I get her running contacts trained I have got to chill out!  It is so hard!
Snooker was last and I am so proud of doing two front crosses and a threadle and not messing any of that up!  She popped the weaves at the end and stressed down but I was happy to see her come back with me and hop through them and finish.  And that was our last Snooker Q towards the C-ATCH!




11 Qs more to go.... 9 Standard.  2 Wildcard.  

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