Tuesday, February 26, 2008

She did it!!!

We did the trial in Youngsville, NC yesterday. It was a 2 ring 1 judge trial so we didn't have to get up extremely early to make the drive out. When we got there Venus was very hyped up. We walked around and watched for a while to calm her. Eventually it may be fun to run her when she is pumped up like that but I'm not ready for it. I don't think she could mentally run like that and still listen either.
It came time for Open JWW and we went to work on the warm up jump. She was blasting over it at full speed ready to zoom somewhere as fast as she could. She listened though and behaved well. We went and waited at the ring for our turn, Venus isn't patient and kept trying to lunge into the ring. :) I'm glad she's that excited about doing this.
It was a nice course that I thought would be good for our first open run. It started off great and Venus was flying! She was ahead of me for the weaves but she hit her entry! Yay Bean! Jenn, a friend of mine who is my online agility instructor, thought maybe I've been crowding Venus on the weave poles at trials since I don't get near as close when I'm training. I really think she's right because Venus did much better out ahead of me. Check out the link to her blog Agility Addiction
over there------------------------------------------>
She did end up with a refusal on the weave poles because she entered so fast she didn't turn back in time to get the 2nd pole. It's always one issue or the other on the weaves but I'd rather take the speed issue than the entry issue. I started her over and she did a wonderful job on all 12 poles.
Silly dog, knocked the very next bar. Again she was flying and was 2 more jumps ahead before I could say anything about the bar. Since she was that far ahead I didn't down her but I did call her back to me to make her settle. There was no cross at that jump, I didn't call her, and it was her first run of the day so I couldn't think of any good reason for her to have knocked that bar other than being on the verge of out of control. I think I caused a refusal calling her back to me but at that point it didn't matter. The rest of the course was good until the last jump. She doesn't understand "go on" yet and she turned back into me at the last jump and went around it. Since we had NQed with the knocked bar I didn't worry with it.
The next run was Novice standard. We just needed the one leg for our NA. Again she was nice and fast, I think I'm getting better at handling her with some speed. We did a beautiful rear cross at the tunnel. She was far enough ahead I crossed before she was in the tunnel. She locked onto the tunnel when I said tunnel and did a very nice job. We had issues at the weaves again. She missed the entry, I was standing very close. The course was coming off the a-frame, the tunnel to the left, a jump to the right, and the weaves straight ahead. I wanted to be close to be sure we got weaves instead of the tunnel. Since it was novice I wasn't real concerned with a refusal on the weaves since they don't count, yay.
The rest of the run was going great until the end. She came out of the shoot and went to the left some and saw the table. If there is ever an obstacle that will draw Veni's attention and make her take an off course it is the table. She was running full speed for that table. I called her and she slid to a stop very very close to the table. It blew her mind that I wasn't coming over there and she seemed a little upset that she had gone off somewhere without me. Remember she's my velcro dog. She came flying back to me and over the very last jump for a Q, 1st place and the last lef of her NA!
Venus ended up with a 100% Qualifying rate in AKC Novice!!! I am so thrilled with how she's done so far.
Brandy

Friday, February 8, 2008

Whoops!

It seems I forgot to actually post the last post I made. Atleast it had saved and I could just add it!

No real updates because we haven't been doing much. We've been working weave entries again but she does so good at home. I found another trial to enter, yay! Our next trial will be in Youngsville on Feb 24.
Brandy