We have come so far this year. SO far. Last November, Cedar had one title (ASCA herding, STDs). We were solid on the basics of agility, but her weave pole performance (on 6 poles) was iffy, especially her entries. I still felt overwhelmed by her speed and drive on the course, and felt like I was handling a rocket... and by "handling," I mean barely controlling, LOL. We were starting to become a good team, but still had a looooong ways to go. In many ways, we still do. Now, we are a much stronger team, have earned ten agility titles (!!!) and our rally novice title, are on our way to more consistent weave poles, and I feel like we're starting to get into a really awesome groove. I can't wait to see what next year brings!
Last November we competed at this same trial, and walked away with nine Q's and two new agility titles. I was so proud of Cedar and felt overwhelmed by it all, sure, but I also felt my enthusiasm for agility grow and my sense of purpose solidify. Competing in agility just felt "right" in a way that most everything else hadn't. We were both totally hooked on agility after that trial.
Me and Cedezz with our ribbons from our first agility trial:
After our first trial, we had the months of December and January "off" from trialing, but we didn't exactly take it easy. We spent the winter training hard, learning new skills and working on our teamwork. In February, we competed in our first AKC trial, earning our first two legs in Novice Standard and FAST, and our first leg in Jumpers. We finished up those titles at our next trial in March.
Our "loot" from the March trial ;)
Now, because we had been practicing on International style and Excellent level AKC/USDAA courses in practice, the openness of Novice courses made it pretty easy for us to be successful.
We finished our Novice titles and "moved up" pretty quickly.... and just as quickly, hit a giant wall in Open. We could handle the courses, but Cedar just couldn't weave 12 poles in a trial. For almost six months, we didn't Q in a single Open or Excellent run that required weave poles. We did really well in FAST (because weave poles weren't required) and in NADAC classes without poles, but were very unsuccessful overall, over the summer and into the fall. I got very frustrated because we could run the courses fine; everything was within our skill level except for the weave poles. She would occasionally get them right, but it always felt like an accident. I got really, really, unflatteringly frustrated.
After a trial in September, I decided to take a step back and work on some obedience and freestyle. We took a few weeks off from agility and just did fun stuff to work on her obedience and impulse control. We competed in rally (and earned our RN), started to think seriously about canine freestyle, and are currently working up a routine to Liza Minelli's version of "All That Jazz" to submit to a video trialing event with the MDSA in December. It was great to not think about agility for awhile... and when I finally felt we were ready to come back, I had a whole new attitude.
Our trials in October (AKC) and November (NADAC) were, at least to me, the most fun. I feel like Cedar and I are starting to get into some kind of groove. Things are just "gelling" better. I think all of our "other" work in obedience and freestyle has helped with her weave poles too, indirectly. I feel like she is thinking more on the course, overall. She loves the game so much that sometimes it's hard for her to make me part of the equation ;) After all, she likes to go REALLY REALLY FAST, and I, well, am not LOL. I love her so much... she is such an incredible dog. Anyways, at the October trial, we finished up our Open Standard (OA) title and earned our first Q in the new Time 2 Beat class.
Which brings us to the trial this past weekend... the purpose for this post! Jeez, I sure am long winded ;). So anyways, this was a really fun trial! We ended up Q'ing in 7/17 runs, breaking our recent "tradition" of only earning 2 Q's per weekend ;) and had a lot of fun doing it. It was a three day trial, which is normally really exhausting for us, but I wasn't as tired on Sunday as I normally am. Friday's trial started off a bit slow, and I was a little bit discouraged that we couldn't seem to Q. But we did qualify with a first place on our last run, Open Hoopers. It was our first time running the new Numbered Hoopers style, and wow, what a blast! When I first looked at the course, I thought that there would be no way that I could keep up with Cedar, but when we were actually out there running, it was so smooth that it felt slow! That was sort of our "theme" for the weekend.
We really hit our groove on Saturday, earning three Q's in Elite Jumpers (first two legs) and Open Regular (first leg). Sunday we repeated with three more Q's, finishing up our Novice Chances title, earning our second leg in Open Regular, and our second leg in Novice Tunnelers. We had several other really, really nice runs that were "near misses"... one dropped bar in Elite Jumpers on Friday in an otherwise perfect run, several heartbreaking off courses (handler error, doh!) in Regular, Tunnelers and Touch N Go, and one run that was just a disconnected trainwreck ;). But I was SO pleased with her this weekend. She was awesome... a total partner and teammate. I felt really connected to her in most of our runs. We even got all but one or two discriminations! After flunking the first round of Tunnelers early on yesterday (handler error... ugh), I decided to play with some distance handling on the rest of the course. She was AWESOME. We would have made the 15 pt bonus line! We Q'd on the next tunnelers round to end the weekend with a little "tangible" success. I couldn't have asked for a better trial to end our first year of competing.
One of the best parts of this weekend? She didn't pop out on the tenth pole ONCE .. all our weave pole issues were due to the NADAC rule of not nailing down the poles. She hits them so hard that they rock, and switching from the first to the second set would sometimes knock her out... but she would ALWAYS do them right the second time! And most of the time she did them right on the first try :) And because there are no refusals in NADAC, we never NQ'd on the weave poles.
The very best part of the weekend for me, though, was spending it with Cedar doing what we both love to do. A few weeks ago, I took Cedar in for her OFA hip and elbow x-rays. I was considering breeding her this winter or next spring, so it was something that needed to be done. Well, unfortunately she came back mildly dysplastic in one hip. She had normal elbows, though ;). The vet who did the x-rays told me that she did have some "concerns" about that hip, so it wasn't a total surprise, but it was still really sad for me. Fortunately, the vet ALSO said (and this was also confirmed by the OFA report) that she had NO arthritis in her "bad" hip, just a shallow socket, and that if I keep her fit and in good weight (yeah, not hard for her! lol) she will most likely never be lame or have any problems from it. So that is good news.
Since then, I've just been really thankful for the opportunity to train, run, trial, and just be with her. Things could be so much worse... we could not be able to do agility, or I could not have her at all...so that makes all our little problems seem that much more insignificant. I am so grateful for my girl dog. She's funny, weird, beautiful, talented, smart, and perfect...for me. We're like peas and carrots, my Cedez and I.
I ordered some professional videos of our runs from Three Pines Productions. What fantastic people! I would highly recommend utilizing their services if you happen to attend a trial where they are videoing runs. Once I get the videos, I will edit a highlights video as well as a year in retrospect video, and post them here with some more commentary. But y'all are just gonna have to wait for that ;)
w00t
ReplyDeleteYou guys rock.