CPE Nationals - 3 Days of FUN!

Time to continue mine and Molly's CPE Nationals adventure!

Friday we arrived at the Champions Center bright and early for the longest CPE briefing I have ever heard!   I had a good idea of which ring we needed to be in, when, as well as two other local friends in my group (There were 18 different groups - Molly and I were in I-2.)  All of the groups cycled through the six different rings in "rotations" and there were three courses each day.

Friday was: Standard, Fullhouse and Jumpers.   After Thursday I was feeling a little bit deflated, but we were going to get to run Fullhouse indoors and we would be able to build confidence before our last run of the day in the outdoor ring (Jumpers.)  Other groups had different run orders and different rings they needed to be in, but ours was as good a set up as I could ask for.

Standard was first.  Molly breaks her start line stay, triggering a completely ineffective and late rear cross.   We NQ in short order with a wrong course on the teeter (and a comedy-show attempt to get onto the wrong end of the teeter!)   Another wrong course after the weaves into the tunnel but hey, who cares at that point.   Happy with the brain-using on the dog walk contact!

Fullhouse was our typical relaxed, rack 'em up style.    We earned 43 points, one point shy of our personal best in Fullhouse.   This was our only Q of the day and the closest we came to being in the ribbons all weekend!

Jumpers was last, outdoors.   A lot of complaining all around about the Jumpers course.   I had more important things on my mind - keeping Molly under BagBrain threshold!   I was "as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs" waiting for our turn to go into the ring.   She misses the tire jump and I could blame that on myself for not supporting it enough.   I just wanted to get going and have some success in the ring (from Molly's perspective, not a Q-perspective.)   It could also have been residual outdoor-ring stress, which she has plenty of.   The course goes okay, I decel too soon and she runs around the right side of one jump.   Some awkward handling on my part deciding whether or not to wrap her around the third-to-last jump.    I was absolutely thrilled with this run and how Molly cooperated with me in the outdoor ring!

Saturday we really started to relax into the game.  

We had Jackpot first.   I hear that Jackpot at Nationals is always traditional, meaning that it is always point-gathering and you proceed to the "Gamble" when the buzzer sounds.   I hear it is always more challenging than your average trial's gamble, as it should be.   When I saw the weaves in the gamble I knew we did not have much of a chance but I had fun plotting and planning with everyone else, like my dog was normal or something.  (haha!)   My plan was to recall Molly to me after the 2-Tunnel.   Get her head.   Ask her "Do you See?" as we practiced in her weave class, get her to see the weaves.   And send her.   I recalled her but didn't have her focused on me enough, I was rushing.   She took the 6-tunnel rather than the weaves.   All in good fun!  26 dogs out of 700-something entered completed the gamble.

We had to do Wildcard in the outdoor ring next and I was feeling that this was the only course we could possibly earn a Q on for Saturday.   I felt very positive after our success in the Jumpers ring the day before.   Unfortunately a cocker spaniel under the shade tent had a reactive episode towards Molly and air snapped and lunged at her face.   This got her wound up and I had to move to the blazing direct 90-degree sun next to the ring.   She tries to run out of the ring and then is off like a bat out of hell when I release her, and that completely caught me off guard!   She had wilted considerably in the heat and was very pokey walking into the ring so I just didn't expect that.   I was terribly late with my front cross out of the tunnel and she completely fails to read it and takes a wrong course jump.   Now our teamwork was completely thrown off and after the weaves she takes a tempting wrong course jump again.   So, I just left - and I won't say I wasn't frustrated.   I hosed Molly off and put her cool coat on her and let her chill in her crate with the fan and ate some lunch.   We took a break from each other.

A long break until Standard.   Did some timing ring work and got to relax and watch some other teams, and cool off inside the building.   By the time it was our turn to run Standard, I was so sleepy and exhausted I said "I could lay down right in this dirt and go to sleep."   Molly felt the same way because she wasn't running too fast but...she surprised me with a Q!   Yay!

Our last day we started in the outdoor ring with Colors.  This course was a Q with 3 time faults for being overtime for....the weaves.   Her weaves completely fell apart and she was so stressed about it that she sniffed the entire way out of the ring (On her leash) and did not even want her post-run treat.   She was too busy with her nose glued to the ground, stress sniffing.   That broke my heart.   I gave her a treat and told her she was a good girl and asked for some nose touches and spins and then she really perked up.  A lot of question marks in our future regarding outdoor rings. 

Next was Standard and besides a refusal in the beginning (non-scoreable in CPE and I'm pretty sure she thought I was sending her to the backside despite no wing)  it was a lovely run until the weaves.   She completely fell apart.   I tried to give her space, let her get her own entry and she stressed down.   We were 20 seconds over time.  I was very proud of us for getting all of the handling challenges earlier in the course - there were lots of tunnel discriminations and Molly did great with that.  

Our last run of Nationals was Snooker.  Nice opening, late front-cross that I should have just "pulled" instead of and she was in a wrong course tunnel and we NQd.   Oh well.   The video cuts out but I will never forget Molly's joy here as she hits the table she did one of her big Tigger-bounces off the table.   She does that when she's really happy and I just loved it!   I was disappointed we didn't make it through the closing but I loved that moment!

So, we got one Q each day.   Three ribbons.   Molly never jumped out of or ran out of the ring.  We held our own on many of the courses (which quite a few people said were harder than is usual at Nationals.)   I'm glad for that, they should be challenging.   When Molly is really on, and the reactivity and craziness have settled down, then I get to really enjoy handling.   But until that point there is so much extra noise buzzing around in our heads.   I, we, we do the best that we can.   Molly is naughty and despite all of our hard work she has a short attention span, a low frustration threshold and minimal self control.   But she gives me everything she has, whenever she can.   She tries, I know that.

On our drive home Monday, between rest stops and state park stops (another post for another day) I watched Facebook.   Ribbon photos, placements, High in Trial plaque photos, awards issued and great successes attained by many teams that I know, and many teams that I do not.   There were none of these for Molly and I - but we did have those three ribbons.   One Fullhouse Q and two Qs I felt we barely deserved (toenail-in contact in Standard, two time faults shy of an NQ in Colors.)   But still, we did that.   

But the most successful moments for me weren't those ribbons.   It was the people, at least two every day...and more...people from different states who had never seen Molly and I....people who could not resist going out of their way to approach me and tell me...

"I love watching that dog.   She is having so much fun."

"She is so happy!"

"She is so fun to watch!"
"She is beautiful."

"It must be a real rush to run your dog."

It is.   She is naughty, she embarrasses me, she humped me and bit me, she makes me feel so small and ineffectual.   But I am good at regaining perspective, I am good at finding the good.   My heart is so big with pride that Molly makes people happy.   Everything she does is so big, people just eat it up.   She is definitely no cookie cutter dog - you just can't help but stop and watch.   And laugh.   And love her.  Eternal gratefulness to this dog for being by my side for such a fun adventure.  She did not make it easy, she did not make it perfect - but she made it unique and special and she made it our's.   The very best.

CPE Nationals: The Day(s) Nothing Went Right!

How do I even start to write about CPE Nationals?  It was such a big experience for Molly and I.

I love long drives and trips.  I love the Turnpike and rest stops and endless cups of coffee and flying down the open road.   All was going well until I did a slight detour into Pittsburgh to visit Point State Park.   I was giddy to check some western State Parks off of the list.   Traffic was absolutely horrible and of all things, an enormous arts festival was in full swing on a Wednesday evening right at the park.  No parking.   No park visiting.   I literally could see the park but had to just ... leave.   I sat in an hour of rush hour traffic until it finally let loose on the Turnpike again.   My GPS took me on and off the turnpike for no good reason.   My credit card got declined because of fraud protection (being several hundred miles west without calling one's credit card company will do that!)   My mood was darkening, I don't care for set backs.   I had to scrap my plans to visit Raccoon and Hillman State Parks because of all the lost time, and that was extremely disappointing.

As soon as we shook loose of the grid locked traffic and plans gone amiss, I put on some Bad Dog Agility podcasts, stopped at a rest stop for a Molly-walk and geocache find and we flew through West Virginia and onto Ohio.   With 90 minutes to go, fighting to arrive before sundown, I switched over to fun music and shameless speeding.  We arrived at Buck Creek State Park, our home for the next four days with plenty of daylight to spare for tent set up and a sorry meal of a Spam sandwich (hey, camp food!).   I just recently discovered that Spam slices come packaged in single servings, and turn your nose up at Spam if you will, but it is quite tasty when you are camping or hungry from a long hike!

Thursday morning I staked down our tent and EZ-Up before leaving for the Champions Center, the sprawling fair grounds where the National Event would be held.

I knew acclimation would be a challenge for Molly, but we have worked hard on those mental tools and I was counting on our progress.   Molly was as chattery as ever walking into the Champions Center, she was leash pulling.   We did LAT, we took it slow.   Molly was road tired, she did not sleep well the night before in a new place.   Her threshold for dealing with this overwhelming experience was severely diminished.  We rented a stall with a friend of ours so I got to work setting up our crating area and decorating....

There were 6 rings - two outdoor, two indoor, two in a covered pavillion outdoors.   There were countless vendor stands.   There was A Lot Going On.   The place was huge.   I parked three different times actually, trying to figure out how on earth to simply get to our stall.  There were handlers walking dogs, handlers whizzing around in golf carts, there was a lot going on.   I was on overload.   I had to check in, get my welcome packet.   My Nationals t-shirt (I had pre-ordered it.)  My goodie bag (enormous!)

And then I needed to get Molly to her practice runs.   We had one scheduled in the pavilion ring at 12pm and one in the outdoor grass ring at 1pm.   If I was on overload, Molly was on mega overload.   She tried to pounce on a red dachshund, much to the terror of its owner and my embarrassment.   The dog looked just like my mother's dachshund and it was truly just a completely rude Molly-greeting, but still completely unacceptable.   Molly was tired, overwhelmed and her self control as at a terrible low.  

Our practice run in the pavilion was decent!   She exploded off the start line and did a zoomie loop, nothing I didn't expect.   She came back and worked with me for her Wubba, did nice weaves.   Before I knew it our 50 second time slot was over.   Then things took a nose dive.

I had to rush to the outdoor ring, our walk through was already in progress.   A friend offered to hold Molly for me while I walked.   Molly was hot and snapping and squeaking her Wubba like a lunatic.   I left her and could hear her screeching and lurching around while my friend held her.   Her self control was fraying even further.  When I came out from the walkthrough Molly was so jacked up with frustration that she latched onto me and started humping me.   Sigh.   I took her inside to our stall, got her some water and tried to get her to calm down and did a little engagement work.   Then back outside to wait for our run.   I sat down to chat with our friend, barely noticed an old time tractor starting up near the main building.   Molly noticed.   It sounded like...a generator.   She saw movement in the ring.

Bag Brain.   As far as Molly was concerned, it was lure coursing.   It was last September all over again.   Up on her hind legs, screaming and chattering bloody murder, putting on a horrific and scary display for anyone who doesn't know her.  Lurching forward, yanking me and even tried a few snaps at me.   And I will be honest, I wanted to pick her up off the ground by her ears.   Not that I would!   But I was exhausted, we worked so hard to get there.   So hard.   And we drove all that way and I work so damn hard every trial, every day to help Molly deal with her reactions to the environment and sometimes it just feels like we are chasing our tails.   In fact, we are.  

Distance always helps with the Bag Brain.    I got her away though she did keep looking.   I tried to get her to do her tricks and she gave me 10% effort.   And I normally would have just scratched and walked away but I needed to get her into that ring so that she could see: no bag.   Max200 was randomly set up and vending equipment next to the outdoor ring.   They had a pause table-top laying on the ground and it saved us.   I asked Molly to "Up" and that made some sort of sense to her.   On and off the table until finally she came down from outer space and could do her tricks.   We returned ringside....and quite unfortunately there was an electrical cord laying on the ground.   Even more unfortunately, some unsuspecting young man chose that moment to pick up the extension cord.   He drug it along the ground towards himself...well guess what that looked like to...  My horrible pitbull.   Lure coursing line!    She let out her loudest screech yet and started pouncing and pounding the ground and air snapping at the cord.   Trying to bite it and letting out horrible screams of prey-lusty joy.   By now I was ready to rip her ears off.  

Back away from the ring.   Restarting engagement work (we had none, the bag trumps all.)  It was just about our time to go into the ring and I had Molly's mind with me as much as possible...which was not much.   She did her start line stay and kindly exploded to the other end of the ring with a screech as soon as I took the leash off.  She was looking for the bag and I could see that.   And then, almost comically, she looked at me...scandalized.   There was...no bag?   I asked her for a tunnel.   I praised her lavishly when she exited it.   I sent her back into the tunnel and asked for two jumps.   More praise and I told her "leash".   We approached the exit chute and I asked for another tunnel and we did the finish jump.   She got her Leash.

No one else has to deal with this, I'm sure of it.   Why me?   Why.  Me.   So here I am 500+ miles from home.   I remember when we started agility.   She was so naughty.   I refused to enter a trial that was 90 miles away - she simply wasn't trustworthy.   It would be a waste of time, of money, of gas.

And it sure was easy to feel that same way, standing on the grass getting air snapped at and humped by my own dog.   Having her on her hind legs shrieking at the ring like a completely out of control monster.   What have I done?   I was a fool to trust this dog.

I felt really sad the rest of the day.   I tried my best to snap out of it.   We were at Nationals!  My dog is healthy (physically, not mentally.  Ha!) and sound and here we are on the brink of the experience of our agility lives.   But when you run a pitbull and she is acting scary and out of control and you have no idea how the next three days are going to go....it's hard to see the sunny side.  

We went to the lake with our stall friends.   Molly showed Mack her teeth when he gently kissed her face, she stole all of his tennis balls out of the water, only to spit them out and leave them behind.   She was a complete brute.   I retreated to our campsite with a good book, aiming to relax and get an early night's sleep.   There were at least two stray cats and assorted wildlife roaming around (I can't make this stuff up!).   Molly was out of her mind, racing to the end of her cable tie and screeching at all of the animals that she couldn't chase.   Forget about relaxing.  My husband and I laughed about it on the phone that night.   We laughed about the entire day.   Molly was a total embarrassment, but she was our embarrassment.  

This is Molly!  This is life with Molly.   She is who she is.   She was maxed out and completely exhausted.   Tomorrow would be better...it had to be.

So, I think I will leave off writing about Nationals for now.   I certainly did not plan to write so much about the set up/practice day but there it is!  More to come!

Ohio Here We Come!

I got some awesome news yesterday!

Molly and I met the qualifications for entry in CPE Nationals 2016.  (40 qualifying scores earned in 2015 - Molly earned 56!)  The trial opened March 1st so I mailed our entry out.   There was an entry limit of 700 dogs and any excess of that number meant that a random draw would be conducted to decide which 700 dogs would be going to Nationals.   Cue freak out!  I was not letting myself get too carried away looking forwards to the National or making big plans for travel when I was not even sure if we would be going.

Yesterday the e-mail was released: the entry limit was exceeded, but CPE has chosen to permit all teams whose entries were received before March 14th (the closing date for entry into the random draw, if necessary) to run!  

That means we are going for sure!  This will be the biggest event I have ever attended as a dog handler, and certainly Molly's biggest!   We are going to camp, geocache, meet new people and play agility and we are going to have fun!