Oh Yeah, You Blend

Video of Nina’s Hoopers run today. Our last run of this weekend’s Four Seasons NADAC trial and our first Hoopers Q! In Novice Hoopers you do at least three “non-test” hoops (in this case, the white ones down the middle), then a “test” set of hoops (a mini course the judge has set, there are usually three or more you can choose from), then at least two “non-test” hoops again (the “tests” we did were the four red hoops on the right first, then three blue hoops on the left in a pinwheel shape).  I think we did both sets of test hoops pretty nicely, but you can see that I mis-timed my rear cross (where you change sides by crossing behind the dog) when we did our second set of white hoops (before we went to the blue hoops), which pushed her off the hoop (and she sure let me know) – just goes to show you how sensitive dogs can be to your body language, she did exactly what my body language told her to do, even though it wasn’t what I intended to tell her to do!  Thank you Jen for the video!

Nina earned her Novice Jumpers With Weaves leg #1 with a clean run today at the DOTCORNY AKC trial at Boome Towne!  I am thrilled!  Not only did we fulfill the Prime Directive (as always: have fun), but we got the super-mega-extra-awesome-bonus brought to you by the letter Q and the number 1!!!!

What helped: Novice starting MUCH later in the day meant I got to walk the dogs before we even left for the trial, then spent a lot of time playing frisbee, so Nina had a chance to scrub off a lot of her crazies.  She was still fast and excited, but able to focus (and her contacts were great, she jumped up on me on the table, so we automatically NQ’d in Standard, but she was reasonably quiet and didn’t jump on and off the table a zillion times), and our Jumpers With Weaves run was just awesome, we had real teamwork and connection, I gave my cues when I needed to and she listened and ran her heart out.  I remembered Paula Goss’s advice and gave her rear cross cues on the takeoff sides of the jumps and it made a real difference, her jumps were clean and smooth, and she knew where I wanted her to go early enough that she didn’t get frustrated and herdy and I could just stay out of her way and let her work. Yay Nina!  What a good girl! I guess I’ll keep her.

It was also so nice that so many CPE people were there, and even the people I didn’t know were very helpful and nice.  Lisa and Mari and Sue were super-supportive and helpful and having Jeannine and Holly there to keep things light made it so much less stressful than I was worried it might be.  I was a bit intimidated coming into this weekend, but once we walked out on the course for our first run, I remembered it wasn’t brain surgery, it was just another agility trial for Nina and I to play at, and IT WAS FUN!

Today Nina finished her last TWO CPE Level 3 titles, earning her Level 3 Standard title (CL3-R), and Level 3 Handler Games title (CL3-H) at All Dawgs, which means her “alphabet soup” changes to just “CL3” now. Her Colors run today was one of her best agility runs ever, she was beautifully smooth and accurate, she got her weaves on the first try for the first time ever at a trial, and she ran the course in just over SEVENTEEN SECONDS!!!  Mari said Nina banks the curves in the tunnels, which is why she rockets out of them so quickly. She also qualified in every run today, and it was a hot, hot day.  Back for more tomorrow!

The awesome Patricia McConnell!

…a great blog post.

Dog Spelled Forward is an excellent dog training blog written by a dog trainer and behavior consultant in New Jersey.  He does commentaries about episodes of the Dog whisperer, and deconstructs them well (and gives credit where credit is due).  We need more like him!