This weekend was Fionavar K9's "Woofstock at the Beach" trial out in Olds. We were only entered in one day - but it was a most awesome day.
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| On his cooling mat under my desk. Too hot in the house for him to sleep after we got home |
1) Baxter worked for me. In that heat. He was fantastic! It's always kind of a concern of mine how he would handle the heat because of his coat. He had his cooling mat to lay on but I haven't gotten one of the metallic shade tarps (you know the woven metal ones that block more sun and keep the tent cooler and still let in the breeze.) I brought lots of water to soak him down before and after runs too. I think it also helped that the tent was pitched in a soggy spot, so the ground was nice and cool.
2) Did I mention that he worked for me in the heat?! So happy with my little guy. Not only did he work in the heat, but Jumpers was the last run of the day and he ran his little legs off in the omg-so-hot-I-think-my-brain-melted to Q in Jumpers at 4.03 yards per second (which is really fast for him.)
3) Technically we only Q'd in 1/3 of our runs. However, he did SO GOOD that I don't care, it was a huge success.
Standard went well. There were only 6 poles (done twice) but he likes that better than 12 poles anyway. He missed the first weave entry, initially I thought it was because I didn't babysit it - but now I think I was also late telling him to weave. I didn't hold position on a front cross into a tunnel long enough for him to commit, resulting in a refusal for that one. I need to work on this with him in drills, seems to be a weakness of ours. I either need to support better or build in a little more value for tunnels. Other than those 10 faults we did good, and under time. More importantly, I handled it the way I walked it, for the most part it worked and I didn't get lost!
I thought that Advanced Gamble was going to be a donation run once I saw the course map. It was a tough final gamble.
It doesn't help that I've never sent him to the backside of a tunnel to find a entrance either. One of the other competitors was a huge help suggesting I send him into a tunnel in the opening to show him that there is a tunnel entrance there. I was only a little in front of the gamble line sending him through the gap in the tunnels to the right entrance of 2 and he took it like a pro, no hesitation whatsoever! The rest of my opening was a little helter skelter, but we were mostly in place when the buzzer went to start the final.
The blue line is the path he took. HE DID THE FINAL GAMBLE!! Staying out, and not coming back in around the back of 2! Sadly, the buzzer went while he was in the tunnel 3, and we missed qualifying by 0.09 of a second ... story of our agility career, lol.
It's bloody difficult to do these gambles with a short dog who doesn't move the tunnel much, I couldn't see him once he was near the tunnel mouths so I didn't know when he went into 3 or if he was looking but not in etc. I don't even care that we "didn't" qualify. I think the only other Adv dog to get this gamble was Flash, who isn't handled or trained by someone new to agility. Distance skills class is working (and in more ways than one, the small drills and good rewards are building drive really well too.)
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