'Tis the Season for Snow

Well, for the first time, my plans to travel to a trial were thwarted.  The first snow storm of the season arrived just in time for the NADAC trial in LaCrosse and unfortunately, we were snowed in :(  As a consolation, the dogs had a jolly time playing in the snow and embraced the wet stuff much better than the humans.  Thus is life, though, and I am looking forward to the next NADAC trial at the end of December.

Luckily, we have a full trial schedule this month, so I didn't have to wait long to do agility again.  We spent one day last weekend at the Agile Canines CPE trial and had a great time.  No weave troubles this time and Zoe continued to perform as a seasoned dog.  We earned three Qs - Full House, Jackpot, and Colors.  Our Standard run was a tough course, but Zoe maneuvered it very well.  Unfortunately, I made a handling error at the end and Zoe took an off course tunnel :(  Other than that, the run was great and I was really glad to see that level 45C courses are not too challenging for us.  Despite my error, my handling has really improved over the past few months, and I think it has helped Zoe become much more confident.  Our next trial will be a 2-day event at the new On the Run Canine Center in Ham Lake.  It is a new trial site, so I am not sure how Zoe will react.  But she is used to running indoors at class, so hopefully that will be an advantage. 

Breeze's training is also moving along quite well.  We are working on sequencing and contacts and she continues to show no fear.  Now that snow has arrived, our training at home will be limited, but I am finding new things to keep her busy.  I bought a backpack for her to wear on walks, which will hopefully wear her out a little more.  So far, she has tolerated it well.  I've also been doing a lot of shaping with her to wear her little brain out.  She's getting the hang of it, and is learning some new behaviors.  I hope to get better at it myself as it requires breaking behaviors down so that they can be successful.

Seasoned Dog

This weekend I got the seasoned dog at the Southpaws CPE trial.  I was a bit nervous because it had been a while since trialing on dirt and it can be very distracting.  Throughout our ups and downs in the past year, one thing that has remained consistent, but getting better, is Zoe getting distracted during a run.  She's a young dog still with relatively little agility experience, so getting distracted is a natural issue.  However, just in the last month, I have really seen her focus improve and we began running courses smoother and faster.  Part of it is that my handling is getting better, but also, Zoe is enjoying the runs more and more.  It's a shift from doing the obstacles because I say so to doing the obstacles because they are intrinsically fun.  Now I think Zoe has always had fun with agility, but now she is more comfortable, knows what to expect, and is more excited to play the game.  But I know motivation naturally ebbs and flows, so I was nervous as to whether I would continue to get what was becoming a seasoned dog or a distracted dog this weekend.  Thankfully, I got the former.

This trial was really filled with several accomplishments.  We finished our last two level three runs - colors and snooker - which gave us our last two level three titles!  I was very happy to get both of those done this weekend.  Also, we had our first shot at the 4/5/C standard runs now that we are in level 4.  We got one out of two, which was fabulous!  The main nemesis this weekend was weaves, which is still a bit of a mystery for me.  Zoe is typically a strong weaver - she enjoys them, finds the entrance well, and rarely pops out.  But for some reason, they were really demotivating to her.  So while she navigated the first standard course perfectly, the weaves were the only reason for an NQ.  This was also the case for Saturday's wildcard run.  So we went home that night and I gave her lots of goodies for doing the weaves correctly.  I think this helped because her weave performance was better on Sunday.  The colors course had weaves and we had to restart them once, but we still completed the course under time.  Then, the standard course had two sets of six weaves.  She was a bit slow, but did them both on the first try - yay!  Apparently fulfilling her weave limit for the weekend, I didn't make her do any on the jackpot course at the end!

So all in all, it was a great weekend.  Distractions were very minimal and when she got her weaves, all of our runs were clean without faults.  We ended the trial with a perfect day on Sunday, which was really exciting.  We finished level three and started filling up our level four tracking sheet.  To add to it, we were in the company of some other newer competitors who had a lot of success with their dogs as well.  Always nice to see others from your training class do well!!  Very proud of the folks who are starting out and sticking with it because I was there not too long ago, and I know it pays off.

Next up for us in November is a NADAC trial and two CPE trials.  That should keep us pretty busy!  Meanwhile, Breeze is doing great in her agility class.  She is driving to obstacles at a distance and is starting to sequence 4 or 5 obstacles in a row.  She will definitely be fast, so I need to take my time with her to practice control.  Only a couple more months until we start learning weaves and jumps!