Oh Yeah, You Blend

What a GREAT weekend we had at the Tamarack Lake trial! One of our favorite judges (Zach Davis) at one of his last judging assignments, and WOW! The courses were very technical, I’m still rehabbing my knee/Achilles issue…AND ALICE DOUBLE DOUBLE Q’d! AND EVIE FINISHED HER OA TITLE, WON T2B, AND WAS GENERALLY AMAZING!

Zhora was off this weekend since we were staying over and she doesn’t love staying in motels (and at 12 years old, with a long career, she is allowed to more or less have what she wants). I crated out of my car, which I think really helped.

Alice Saturday Standard (QQ #4, first place):

Evie Saturday T2B (NQ but nice run):

Alice Saturday JWW (QQ #4, second place):

Evie Saturday Novice Jumpers (NQ):

Evie Saturday Open Standard title (OA):

Alice Sunday Standard (QQ #5):

Evie Sunday Standard (Excellent debut, NQ but wow what a nice try):

Evie Time 2 Beat (WON THE CLASS, look at how she reads and follows my decel/turning cue to the weaves!!!):

Alice Sunday Jumpers (QQ #5):

Evie Sunday Jumpers (NQ thanks to HALF A BAR DOWN):

I’m sharing this mostly for myself, but I am proud of the hard work Evie and I have done over the last six weeks or so.

Evie stresses UP, which is a good thing, but it also means that she needs to learn how to channel that up stress and not let it explode her brain. She was disconnecting, zooming, visiting, and just checking out, because she didn’t know where to put the energy she was getting from a trial environment.

For the past several weeks I have only entered her in games classes, only did FEO, and often only did two or three obstacles and then got out of the ring, and we stayed for matches (even if it meant I didn’t get home until after 9 PM).

I am proud that I have been disciplined about not going for the Q but playing the long game, getting her the experience and training and mileage she needs.

I am grateful for the folks who were willing to be pretend ring crew in the classes we dropped into, and for Sue’s help and support as always!

It is ALWAYS worth putting in the effort. It is ALWAYS worth taking a step back and working your foundations. It is ALWAYS worth throwing a Q in order to give your dog the right experience (DON’T FIX ALL THE THINGS!).

Train the dog you want to have in a year. Be patient, but don’t be lazy. And VIDEO EVERYTHING, because seeing even small improvements can be the cookie YOU need to keep going,

It’s obviously a work in progress, but we are for sure several big steps along the right road!

I am so excited about what the future could hold for this little dog!

(Also she earned her very first title – Novice FAST!)

Here’s a little sample of what Sue helped me with today: working Evie through distractions. It is SO helpful to have someone to train with who knows a lot and has good ideas (not to mention, it’s more fun).

Evie is very friendly and also stresses WAY up, the visiting is less about her being friendly though, and more about being an outlet for stress (remember even good stress is still stress).

I am absolutely THRILLED with this! Plus LOOK HOW FAST SHE IS, and look at how quick also – you can see her deke towards me and then back to the dogwalk when she isn’t sure where to go. And this is probably the best set of weaves in a course I’ve ever had from her.

Good girl Evie! She loves to work and is such a trier.

When you’re really invested in your dogs and your dog sport(s), it can make you feel all kinds of big, profound, wonderful, terrible, things.

For me, there are few things that cause me to doubt myself and my skill more than when I feel I’ve let my dogs down.

Since COVID I’ve been much more of a homebody than before (although I’ve really always been a homebody), and so I go to agility trials far less than before. Instead of doing 2-3 days 3 out of 4 weekends a month (or more), I go to 1 or 2 days, once or twice a month.

This has positives: it’s better for my bank account; I get to spend time at home (which I love), with my husband (whom I love); I get to spend more time with my dogs outside of our sport.

But it also has negatives: my dogs get far less trial mileage than before; I get far less trial mileage than before (this has a highly detrimental effect on our mojo); we fall behind with the titles etc.

Agility is just dogs jumping over plastic, yes. But it’s also an amazing bonding experience with your dog. When the mojo is working, you truly do become one mind.

Anyway, all that is a big preamble to me trying to work through how I’m feeling about Evie right now.

Evie is an amazing dog. She’s so fast and quick, in training when I can feel the beginnings of our mojo, it’s like running with a hummingbird or a rabbit, she’s so immediately responsive, it’s like driving a sports car. And, for a dog who can be a bit of a weirdo about some things, she’s really very confident out there (three different people remarked to me about how confident she is).

But she’s a very sensitive dog, and she’s really experiencing the throes of adolescence right now. She has a LOT of feelings about things. And while I absolutely love a dog who stresses up, because those are usually the dogs who end up being the most fun to run with, right now Evie can’t cope well with pressure. She’s run in a handful of trials, and initially she was what I expect out of a novice dog. But the trend over the last few trial days has not been what I want to see, and the way I’ve been handling her is not what I want to see. I am so thankful to have dog friends who are wise, and willing to tell me what they’re seeing and what they think.

Evie is zooming, and visiting, and tuning me out, and I’ve been dropping connection, which is a big part of WHY she’s doing that. I took the opportunity yesterday (after a really ungood trial day) to run her in a match (you have 90 seconds to do what you like on a course, you can bring a toy or contained food). And while I got some really good attention from her in our second run, I came home feeling quite defeated, and disappointed in myself.

So, I pulled her from all ucoming trials, other than the games classes, where I can run For Exhibition Only.

I’m going to do some Control Unleashed pattern games. I’m going to work on relationship. I really think she has the potential to be an amazing agility dog, but she needs more foundation work, and I need to step back, go back, and work this through.

Zhora’s MACH8 has its own post, and was obviously the highlight of the weekend.

One thing I’ve tried to cultivate in myself is that everything can be a learning opportunity if I allow it. I also made a more-or-less New Year’s resolution to try to be less lazy. Trulli coming along meant that the two other green dogs in my house (Alice and Evie) got relegated a bit, and that’s not fair to them.

It became extremely obvious to me this weekend that Alice needs more from me than I’ve been giving her. I realize I’ve sort of been treating her like she’s at maintenance levels when really she isn’t at all. So: more Alice time!

I also found a few areas I need to work on with Evie (this is absolutely expected). She’s doing the thing that Alice also did where she wants to go get the cookies before she’s finished running (and to be fair to her, she was in the crate a LOT this weekend, plus we stayed overnight, so she had a lot of pent up energy both mental and physical). I talked it over with Sue and she reminded me of the really useful cookie jar game, so we’ll be doing that along with some other games to help. That said, there were flashes of real brilliance from her, and I’m super excited about what I’m seeing. She picked up her second Novice FAST Q, but more exciting is that there were real moments of being in sync, with glimpses of mojo starting to build. She is very, very different to run than my other dogs have been (they’re all different from each other, but she’s REALLY different): she’s so tiny and light and agile it’s like trying to run with a hummingbird or something. It’s really interesting.

Alice Friday FAST (Q):

Evie Friday Time 2 Beat:

Alice Friday Jumpers (Q):

Alice Saturday FAST (Q)

Evie Saturday FAST (Q):

Evie Saturday Jumpers (the second half of this course was amazing):

Evie is six months old now. I have done SHOCKINGLY little with her to be honest. Playing, relationship building, a few tricks, conformation handling, but very small amounts of each. This puppy is HUNGRY to learn, she LOVES to work, she is EXACTLY what I wanted out of a Zar/Alice baby. I am so excited about her. She is so smart, she is so willing, she has SO MUCH sticktuitiveness.

Here is a tiny bit of training from yesterday, the good the bad and the ugly. We have done MAYBE three sessions of tiny sequences before this. She’s done a few tunnels, she’s done a handful of “offering the jump” sessions, this is about as untrained as you get. But she figures it out, she wants to play, and she wants to RUN.

Love this puppy!