After good practice runs at my agility club a couple of weeks ago, lots of practice at home, and a really good class on Wednesday night, I had high hopes for today’s trial.
At home, I’ve been doing focus games, working on “wait” and all kinds of tricks, and having him stay with me as we walk. I really thought he was doing well.
Stan needed to be re-measured today. CPE requires it if a dog was measured before turning two. We don’t know his actual birthday, so I’ve called it 10/29/24, which makes him officially two now.
I arrived about an hour before our first walk-through, set Stan up, and checked in with the judge. She was between classes, so she measured him right away. He’s still under 12″, which keeps him in the 8″ jump class.
He settled in his stroller, I caught up with friends, and walked the course. Afterward, he got some zoomies in the fenced area and we practiced “touch” and “here.” He wasn’t listening perfectly, but he was listening.
We had just two runs, Standard and Full House. The Standard course was pretty circular, so I wasn’t worried. Full House had no obvious path, so I’d drawn out several options at home the night before. But once I walked it, things didn’t line up with the paper map and none of my plans would work. It didn’t matter anyway. Stanley had plans of his own.
Our first run, Standard, started with a tunnel, and since Stan usually loves tunnels, I thought it would go well. He did the tunnel, then took off to visit. It’s hard when he knows the ring crew sitting in the ring, because he wants to say hello. It was a battle to keep him on track, and we were halfway through before he finally focused. He also got very interested in smelling the A-frame and peed a couple of drops on it, an automatic disqualification and a first for him. Ugh. I didn’t know what to do, so I asked the judge whether I should clean it up. Evidently not. That’s the ring crew’s job.
The good news is that we finished. We were over time, but he took no obstacles out of order, so no official off-courses, and he ran the whole course with no bars down. It’s something.
His second run usually goes better than the first, but today wasn’t our day. He didn’t want to listen, and even though Full House lets us basically make up our own course, he was distracted and I had to keep redirecting him. We didn’t earn enough points, or the right combo of obstacles. I honestly don’t know which, maybe both. We were over time again, but at least he didn’t pee on anything in the ring!
The worst part came at the end, when he started nipping my ankles and the judge suggested I have my trainer work with us on it. So embarrassing! Little does she know we’ve been working on exactly that, and it’s much better than it used to be.
So, no Qs and no ribbons for us today. I know this is a hobby and the point is to have fun, but I got in my head and kept beating myself up over what else I could have done.
My parents came to watch today, too, so yeah, not the best day. I’m really considering whether to do the next trial I booked in a couple of weeks, or pull out of everything, work on training, and try again in the spring. To compete or not to compete, that is the question!
Some days he’s really lucky he’s so cute!