I registered Perri with NADD and bravely bought two Splashes for her. I got her up on the dock during practice time and she was jumping nicely with Molly and then by herself. When it was time for her actual jump, her confidence dropped. The dog ahead of her was not very exciting (in Perri's opinion!). So Perri was not raring to go and barking as she would have been by a more driven or fast dog ahead of her on the dock. The dog was fairly slow moving, so when I let Perri up onto the dock, it was still on the exit stairs. Perri noticed and it made her very worried. Sigh. I was able to get two jumps out of her by acting like a total fool. Life with Perri! Regardless, she got her first official jump of 8'9", go poodle!
When practice time came around again I got her up there with Molly but I could see that Perri was giving the entire activity a big "no thank you" for the day. It was not as hot and sunny as it had been two weeks prior, that was also working against us. Fortunately I was able to give Perri's other splash to Molly, for a small fee for adding a "day of" entry. I certainly don't think future dock diving is out of the question for Perri, but I knew I needed to let it go for the day. I did not want to further damage her confidence levels.
So Molly ended up doing four splashes, which was fine by her! Her first splash was in the Junior range and then the last three of the day were all in the bottom of the Senior division. She earned her Senior Jumper title with NADD on the third jump of the day.
I doubt that we will do any more dock diving this season. There is a NADD qualifier event in August but it nearly filled and while I would have taken a slot or two, I am not interested in trying to qualify for the Eukanuba event so I'm happy to leave the Splashes to those that are. I really enjoyed doing more dock this season with Molly, and there is no doubt that she did too!
Last weekend we played USDAA agility, just two runs. As planned I had taken Molly out of Standard, so we did only Gamblers and Jumpers. I don't have any videos but it was a really nice day! I was able to create a fun course for us in Gamblers, which I often find myself unable to do. (Whereas in CPE I can almost always plan a point racking flowing course that Molly loves.) A lot of wide open line options in this Gamblers course! The Gamble was very do-able, it was two jumps and then a send to a tunnel. Molly ran out to the tunnel and then...just didn't do it! I should have encouraged her a little bit more but oh well!
Jumpers was a Q and it was a very nice smooth run. No USDAA trials for us until September. We have been doing some motivational work on the weaves in agility class and Molly's speed and enthusiasm have returned to the obstacle. She really does need regular motivational tune ups to keep feeling like weaves are worth her time, important for me to remember!
Zorro also had his first agility trial! It was startling to me to realize that I have had him a little over a month and he is just now visiting an agility trial. Just not going to as many agility trials this summer as we usually have. Zorro did great. He pottied on leash at a new to him trial site, was very focused on me, happy to eat food, happy to explore but re-engage with me when I asked him. Good crate manners in the car. He was not interested in playing with his toy initially but with a little bit of encouragement we did a little bit of tugging. He was very social with everybody there. He met two other puppies around his age and played nicely with them. And as the photo shows, he was very happy to jump up on the pause table. We did not play with the wicket at all, as there is one at my training center that I can work on with him in a bit less distracting environment to start with.
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