Trials and Tribulations

So, yeah. I'm back in Boise.

Not permanently, but til the beginning of December, when the semester ends.

I decided last minute that I really did care about getting my Masters degree, and came back to snag the last two classes I needed, which replaces the thesis that I ended up not being able to complete. Shitty, but whatever. I've moved on. It just seemed like a waste of all that effort and struggle to not get any validation for it. I mean, it's only 16 weeks (15 now)... it would be silly not to. Plus, not having to teach while I'm in school is fabulous. LOL. So far, I'm really enjoying my classes and I have high hopes that this will be an overall positive experience.

So.... I'm back in Boise, and living with my parents. I brought Cedar with me, and Joe is up in Richland in our house with the other two dogs.

One of the benefits of being back in Boise temporarily is that I get to hang out with my agility friends again and train on a consistent basis. I'm excited about that.

So here we are. Life and future in limbo yet again... but without that sinking feeling in my gut telling me that I'm on the wrong path. This feels right, and that is comforting.

Anyways, Cedar and I had an agility trial this past weekend, BARC's annual NADAC games-only trial. We competed in tunnelers, hoopers, and touch n go. It was interesting competing in a trial without any jumps (for everyone) or weaves (for us, we didn't enter weavers). Although Cedar had the opportunity to finish three titles, we ended up finishing just our Novice Hoopers (HP-N) title. We would have finished our Novice Touch N Go title, too if not for a bad call by the judge on her A-Frame contact, which to everyone watching (and verified by me on video later) was completely okay. So... that was a disappointment to say the least.

She really ran GREAT in Touch N Go this weekend.... just perfect in all three runs. We won the first round with the fastest time out of all the classes, NQ'd the second because of the judge, and NQ'd the third because of a stupid handler mistake on the last obstacle (ugh!). But I was really proud of a lot of the stuff she was doing in her Touch N Go runs. She is gaining a lot of confidence at a distance and for the most part I really felt like we were connected as a team in these runs.

Tunnelers was a bit of a disaster. She broke her startline TWICE this weekend, both on tunnelers runs. One on Saturday and one on Sunday. Both mistakes earned her a immediate halting of the run and a walk of shame back to her crate without the usual post-run treats and praise. I was extremely disappointed in her as her start lines are normally very solid. Not sure what was going on there... she just couldn't handle all those tunnels, I guess! But I definitely wasn't in the picture in her mind. It was frustrating to feel so disconnected from her as it's not normally like that when we run. Guess it's time for some more tunnel aversion therapy for her ;)

Hoopers was a success, but by the skin of our teeth, LOL. I always feel kind of hurried and confused with Hoopers. Everything happens so fast, and there's not anything to slow Cedar down to give me more time to think :-P. But we did manage to Q in both Hoopers runs this weekend for our HP-N title. Cedar was good and listened well for the most part. I was proud of her tight turns and obstacle commitment, as she has not practiced much on hoops.

All in all, we earned 3 (really 4, if you count the judge's mistake) Q's this weekend out of 8 runs, and earned a new title. Not a bad weekend! We will be working hard on start lines and reinforcing proper contacts before our next trial (AKC) in a few weeks.

And now... a photo of Cedar with her trial loot :)



Trial video to come, hopefully soon :)