July CPE Agility at Flexible Flyers

This past weekend was our second full-weekend summer CPE Trial with both girls.   It is really starting to feel comfortable that Perri is back, and staying back.  Staying sound!  PA was experiencing a heat wave all weekend of mid-90's and high humidity weather, so that was fun!   We had our Cool Coats from clean run, lots of water, lots of hose offs, and both girls had a battery operated Ryobi fan in their crate with them.  They were both still much slower than normal, especially Perri - and that was to be expected.

We started with Fullhouse, Qs for both pups and this marked Perri's first qualifying score in Level 5!  I was very proud of Perri for being engaged straight off with me and not zooming around and barking at me.   Major improvement!

Standard was next and Molly did qualify.  She ran out a jump that I considered to be very straightforward in the beginning of our course, two jumps after the A-frame.  My friend pointed out that it was in a patch of bright sunlight and the standards and bar were pale blue so...maybe she didn't see it?   I was excited to see a dogwalk/tunnel discrimination on this course because the last time we saw that challenge, we failed it miserably.   This time I kept my distance and called Molly and she came up the walk nicely.  Weave poles I behaved my body language and am rewarded with confident Molly-weaving.

Next was Snooker and I had only Perri entered in this.   I wanted to do only four classes per day, per dog and Snooker was a good one for Molly to skip.   Coming up with a Snooker plan that works for both dogs can be tough, but especially on the first day when Perri can be unpredictable and Molly has more energy.

Some late handling on my part but I was overall super happy with how Perri ran - she is collecting for my front cross even if it was late and she feels like the teammate I had before her injury.  She is back in tune with me.

Wildcard was next with both girls.  Not loving my handling out the first line and a little sad about the weave poles here.   For perspective: I am on the right path, the weave poles won't all get better right away and it was extremely humid and hot at this point in the day.   Things to remember.  Perri was really struggling but I took time to play with her just for a second and you can see her pounce a bit and lighten up, then get into the poles.   We will get there.

Molly

Perri

Jumpers was the last of the day and there are no videos.   The course was straightforward, flowy...and that was good because we were all exhausted.   Molly was a real trooper but she was huffing on the home stretch.   Perri lost it on me on her third start line stay of the weekend - I pushed it with that.   I need to pace our start line stays and here I had gone and done three in one day.  Perri disengaged, got stuck on the start line staring at me and when she finally released she was slow and distressed about the whole thing.   Halfway through the course she remembered she is a Really Awesome Poodle and picked up speed, but it was a good reminder to always run with her off the start if possible.   That is just the best way for Team Poodle, for now.


We started Sunday with Jumpers again.   Both girls did well and were enjoying the cooler morning!   Perri was definitely slowing down but she was trying her best.   Only video of Perri for this course!   (And no I have no idea why on earth I did that front cross at the end.  Dumb!)

Colors was next with sad Molly weaves but improvement with Perri in the weaves.  Not good weave-handling on my part...  It's hard!

Then we had Snooker and this time both girls were running.  Molly is definitely feeling tired on this one but we got the job done!   Perri ran nicely as well, and finished Level 4 of Snooker.

Standard was next and while normally the two straight tunnels would have had me fretting over wrong courses, I was feeling confident that Molly was "too slow and hot" for wrong course tunnels.   Think again!   We run a very nice course but I failed to talk to Molly at all in the second tunnel and off course she went!   All on me, but I had to laugh... I deserved that and Molly was reminding me she is never too hot to not consider a tempting tunnel!

Very last of the weekend was Perri only in a non traditional Jackpot.  If you took a tunnel, the obstacle that you did after that tunnel would double.   I made a nice course and doubled quite a few 5-point obstacles and we ended up with 60 points and a Q.

We ended it all with a nice lake swim on the way home, and both girls were 100% exhausted from all of their hard work!