Jun
21
I suck
So, I suck, and it’s been awhile. It seems to happen at the same time every year, so I blame all the work for Nationals and Tryouts. 🙂
Tryouts–I personally feel like it was Trip’s best one ever. She ran fantastic, but little errors resulted in Es, so it wasn’t her best “finish” ever. Her contacts were fabulous, she gave me everything she had. Can’t wait for next year 🙂
Since then, I’ve been making a point of NOT doing a lot with Trip and trying to give her a break. She goes to her class once a week, I work her a bit at Lori’s house, and we show. I’m putting a lot of focus on Ticket, since she definitely needs the most work. She’s at times brilliant, and at times mind-boggling–in other words, pretty typical baby dog.
Our areas of focus (and they are ever-changing) are aframe contact, DECEL, weave entries with speed, and stays. Aframe contacts and weave entries are a work in progress–she needs more experience. Decel is definitely a challenge for a dog that wants to power over everything, but we’ve got to have it for international courses. And stays, well, I just need to put a little more focus on them. She has not broken a stay, and in general she’s very good, but I’ve noticed her getting more “antsy” at trials. Dancing her feet, doing the “raptor stare” at the first obstacle, etc. I need to be prepared for when she does break, because I think it’s coming. But I need to do a better job in practice of rewarding stays, period.
We’ve done a couple of USDAA, and Trip now just needs one PSJ leg to qualify for USDAA NAtionals at P12. Unfortunately, with the LONG schedule it has, I don’t know if we’ll be able to go, which is disappointing. We’ll see how it plays out… Ticket has run well, and just needs a standard and a jumpers leg for her AD title.
Here are a couple of videos from recent trials…
