Sunday, June 7, 2015

June Rocky Creek CPE Agility Trial

Today was CPE Agility day!   We have not played in CPE since Molly earned her C-ATCH, and to be honest it felt a little bit like coming home.  I had all three dogs entered: Ein got one run, Perri got three, and Molly got to play in all five.

Molly felt so steady to me today.  So trustworthy.  We have been pretty successful at a lot of trials lately - but K9JYM is where Molly has always been the most relaxed and it was such a good feeling to trial without reactivity stress or noise stress.

Molly did both "gambles" in the non traditional Jackpot and we even did a round of weaves.  I was surprised to see that this is her 4/5 needed Jackpot Q towards her C-ATCH2.
Standard was very tricky.  Three sets of 6 weave poles split up throughout the course, and all but one of the sets were very difficult entries.   Molly got every entry and stayed in, though she was slow in the poles.  An off course tunnel earned us an NQ, I was on the wrong side of the weaves and when I front crossed Molly read my cross as a cue to go into the tunnel.   My fault!
Snooker was our first time playing Snooker since we got all five of our Qs for the C-ATCH.  It's not my favorite game ever because if you make a mistake you don't get to keep playing!   Regardless I made up plan, a plan that no one else did - it was very flowy and Molly and I flew through it with almost 15 seconds to spare for another Q.
Next we had two rounds of Wildcard that went completely perfectly - nothing to write about them!   She got her weave entries and stayed in... I feel great about this.  I'm starting to look at Molly's course times and think, "But if only she would weave faster at trials."  That's not fair because not so long ago I just wished that she would stop popping out.  All in good time!   It's also very funny to me that Wildcard was our nemesis, but we earned two Wildcard Qs today with absolutely no trouble.   We are growing as a team for sure!


Perri had a nice first day back to trialing after her month off!   I entered her in three classes that Molly was entered in, and while there was a little bit of rushing around, it was not as stressful as it has been for me in the past.  Perri did Jackpot and ran fast and surprised me by doing the distance challenge gamble!  It was not very hard, but it was more distance than she has ever worked away from me and it was a distance A-frame as well as needing to stay on her line and take a jump after the A-frame.  She got her first Level 4 Jackpot Q.
Next Perri did Standard.  It was the same course that Molly did, with the three sets of 6 weave poles and the tricky entries.   Perri got every entry but popped out of every set.  The first set I lost focus of my mission to build confidence no matter what.  I did not take her back to the beginning, but asked her to go back in where she had popped out.  This was not a good decision.   For the next set of poles, it was the easiest entry.  Perri got the entry but walked out of the weaves.  I praised her and we continued through the course to the final weave set - the most difficult entry.  Perri got the entry and weaved four poles and popped out.  It was very interesting to me to see the progression.  The first set she popped and when I called attention to this fault by asking her to continue weaving, she did worse on the second set.  When completely ignored her poor performance on that set, she did better on the final set - the greatest weave entry challenge of all the sets.  It's all information.

I think that Perri is not feeling so great about the weaves, but I feel that she knows how to perform them.  Her nose got static-shocked by the weaves at K9Gym in the winter.  She was probably working with shoulder pain in the weave poles since March.   I feel that her confidence is shaken but I also feel that I need to work with her to build value back into the weaves.  Bribing her with ham isn't fair, it's not putting her mind in the right spot.  This feels really complicated and overwhelming and I am really sad about it.  I hope I can do that right thing for Perri.

We finished with Snooker and did the same plan as I did with Molly.  I actually designed the plan with Perri in mind.  I will admit to having major "Q-itis" with this Snooker entry because I wanted Perri to finish Level 3.   I made everything as flowy and confidence supporting as possible.  It worked!  Perri ran very nicely (not as fast as Molly!) and did everything well.   She did enter the weave poles at the end of the Snooker course, but popped out at the fourth pole.  I pretended it didn't happen.  We still had 33 points, plenty to qualify so Perri finishes CPE Level 3!


And the best for last (as well as the only video I have today!), was that I entered Ein in a round of Wildcard Level One!  He had a great time and I was just loving running my boy.  I so wish that we could do more agility together, but Ein burns out quickly mentally, and I don't want to overtax his hips.  One happy run is best!  Ein had the best run time of all the Level 1/2 dogs.  Not bad for a ten year old arthritic and dysplastic dog who never does any agility training.  Ein is just happy to be playing with me, no matter what the game is.

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