Concord Weekend

Lots of good, lots of ugly, and some bad. Out of 8 runs Venus Qd in 2 and had to leave the ring early in 3.
Froday- We started with a standard run. I made a mess out of that run. Venus refused her weaves on the first try. Then I turned to the table too soon and Venus turned with me instead of taking the jump. After the table I tried to get her into a better angle for the chute. I turned her too late so she missed it. Then she didn't hold her dog walk contact again, so she had to lie down and leave. In JWW she refused the weaves the first time. Then at a serpentine I didn't make it clear enough which jump I wanted her to take so she came back to me to see. I had an accidental blind cross too. I find myself getting in her way a lot on front crosses. When I did it I knew she was going to land behind me. The only thing to do was to stick out my hand and hope she read it. She did. It was a very nice run on a tricky course.

Saturday- Just beofre leaving on Friday I was talking with some people and we were dicussing liking running a particular dog over another. On the way to the show Saturday morning I started thinking about that more. When I was running Clover I never would have picked an agility trial over a conformation trial. With Venus I will. Why do I enjoy running Venus so much more? I think it is the fact that she loves it and she loves to run. So it finally hit me, like everyone has been telling me. I have to quit trying to control every little thing and let her run fast. That was my goal for the rest of the weekend. It also meant I needed to trust her to do things a little better.
In standard it started off very nice. I called her while she was taking a jump and caused her to knock the bar. She hit her weaves wonderfully in this run, probably because I was more relaxed and letting her just run. I left her at the table. She was in a sit and I walked away to the next obstacle. Since it was the a-frame I thought she might miss the contact with the speed she was going to have since I left her. Add to the fact I tried to front cross there, yeah she missed it. I also got in her path a little and caused a refusal. She held her dog walk nicely though. She did her parts of that run very well and ran fast. She was so happy when we left the ring.
In JWW she was running good but knocked a bar. She also refused her weaves in there. I felt she should have kept that bar up so she had to lie down and leave.
Sunday- Because of the speed the day before she was hyped to run on Sunday morning. In typical hyped up Venus fasion she knocked the 2nd jump (4th obstacle). Plowed down the triple, she hit the bar with her chest which is what she usually does when she's not thinking. I attempted to get away with downing her and then continuing to run. It didn't work and we got whistled off the course. Oh well.
I started stressing that afternoon about our JWW run. I had finally gotten my mom to come watch us and all she saw that morning was Venus being bad. I wanted her to see us run and I just really wanted to run. This run was probably slower than I would have liked because I was nervous and careful. We talked about "bad bars" before going into the ring and I really didn't want to have to stop running the course because of that.
Venus held up her end of the run. She had another clean run, hit her weaves, and had no faults. She came in 2nd place to a very nice BC.
Brandy