Perry, Ga trials

So we went down to Perry, Ga for the agility trials and conformation shows. The conformation shows sucked for us all weekend. It was one of the worst weekends we've had in a long long time. Oh well.
With Venus being so brainless lately I thought I'd use these trials as training. Friday morning started early and Venus had to be measured. She ended up measuring 21 3/4 for her final measurement. I don't have to stress about that anymore.
Our first run was Open JWW and I knew it was going to be bad. It started at the warm up jump, Venus was barking as she was jumping. Then when I was walking her into the ring she was hopping on her hind legs to get to the start line. Venus jumped 2 jumps and then plowed through the third one. I downed her and we left the ring. She looked shocked that I had stopped the game so soon. Then we did down stays outside the ring, she wasn't happy.
That afternoon was our standard run. The run started off ok except Venus missed her a-frame contact. Since she doesn't have a command or specific behavior for it I let it go because she doesn't know anything different. All the more reason for me to quit being lazy and get my a-frame painted and together for her. We had a little problem at a tunnel under the dog walk. It was teeter to the further tunnel entrance. I don't think I rotated enough for her to see the tunnel entrance. The tunnel was u shaped under the middle of the dog walk. When I sent her to it she saw the dog walk. She gave me a weird look since it was a bad angle to get on the dog walk from but she tried it. I got her off the dog walk but she stepped on it again to get back to the side I was on and then into the tunnel. It was a sit on the table and that went well. No sliding off the other side! Then we got to the weaves. Venus weaved! She hit the entry and weaved 12 poles like she's never had a problem. Blew my mind completely.
Saturday we started with JWW again. It was a very nice run and I got to play with my handling a little bit. Again Venus hit her weave entry without a problem. She did pop out at the 10th pole but I started her again and she was fine. Next was a jump to the tunnel and then to another jump. Instead of running to and along the tunnel with her I stayed on the other side of the jumps. I sent her over the jump and to the tunnel and I stayed on the landing side of the next jump. It was beautiful but I tend to get excited about things like that and forget we still have more of the course to run. Luckily Venus picked up the next jump and we were back on track. I rear crossed the 2nd to the last jump and caused her to knock the bar. Ahh we were so close to that Q.
In standard we had teeter to the far end of the tunnel again. Venus headed straight for the wrong end of the tunnel after the teeter. I called her off but her head was already in the tunnel so I think we got a fault for that. She did come back though and I got her around to the other end of the tunnel. Of course by then she was thinking I was nuts, she was going in the tunnel, I called her away, and then sent her into the tunnel lol. Then we had issues at the dog walk to a tunnel. It was one of those where the tunnel went from beside the down side of the dog walk and came out on the other side. She had no clue what I was trying to get her to do after she went down the dog walk. She went back on the dog walk once and probably had a refusal there too. She hit her weaves again no problem and weaved all 12. The table was close since it was a down. She wobbled on the edge some but didn't fall off. It was a straight line to the finish and we were running and for whatever reason she didn't take the last jump. Since she had been so good otherwise (no missed contacts, good weaves and table, no bars) I didn't go back and make her do it. I just let her jump in my arms and be happy.
Sunday morning we started with our standard run. We had the same dog walk to tunnel thing again that day. We do the dog walk and into the tunnel and it went great. As we are running I start hearing a whistle. I look at the judge and hear her say just let her keep running. I had no clue what had happened and I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what we did wrong. We got to the weave poles and again Venus hit her entry and was weaving. Unfortunately she had to stop and sniff something so we got a refusal. I started the weaves over and she did fine. Another sit on the table that went well, then we finished up the course. OMG, we did it, our first open Q! I was so excited but nervous because what had the whistle been about?
The judge came over and it was because the e-timers had messed up. They told me I could take the time they had which was wrong or I could run it again. I was going to run again because I thought it would be good for Venus. They told me all I had to do was complete the course, bars, contacts, refusals, etc didn't count. The problem with the timers turned out to be that when a dog would start in the excellent ring it would start the timers in the open ring. The more I sat there and stressed while they worked on the problem the more nervous I got. What if I couldn't get Venus to weave and we went way over time and lost our first Q. I decided to leave it alone and take the time we had. We were 10 seconds under course time even with the timers starting early. Yes it might knock me out of a placement but I'd still have my Q. We ended up with a 3rd place anyways! The 1st and 2nd place dogs had no faults so we couldn't have beaten them with a faster time anyways.
We had a 6+ hour drive home so we decided to leave after conformation and not worry about the JWW run.
Sorry I have no video because I thought every run might be a down and leave the ring after a few jumps like our first run Friday.
Brandy

Lots going on.

Ok so I've decided to start training Bacchus for agility. Clover is also doing some training, since I am interested in running contacts and she is retired I figured she'd be a good one to experiment with. I will post videos of them as I go.

Venus was supposed to have a lesson with Ronda last week but the weather was so bad that it was cancelled. She hasn't gotten to train in a while now.

We had a conformation show this past weekend and Clover was Best of Breed both days and made a cut in the group. That was nice for my first show of the year.
We leave on Thursday for Perry, Ga for conformation and agility. It's always a busy weekend but this will be my first attempt there at juggling both despite the fact I've said I'm never doing conformation and agility at the same show again. I never learn.

A friend of ours was hit by a car last week while he was walking. Of course whoever hit him didn't stop and kept going. Both of his legs are broken and when he gets out of the hospital he's coming to stay with us. This will be a chance to put Venus' talents to good use. Venus will pick up anything and bring it to anyone. She'll even get coins of the kitchen floor and bring them to us. Since he will be in a wheelchair and in bed if he drops something he can use Venus to get it for him. I hope she'll listen and work for him. It'd be helpful for when he's here by himself. I'll see if I can get video of her working that tonight.
I don't think I've shown this before but it's an example of things Venus likes to do and learn.
Venus loads silverware in the dishwasher. This video was after 3 or 4 days of training.

Brandy