Whee Wednesday

We did the Whee Wed evening trial with all the dogs this week.
It was a "Regionals Prep", so we ran Gamblers, Standard, & Jumpers.
As you can imagine, with everyone getting ready for Regionals, there were a lot of people there. We didn't get home until nearly 1 AM...

We started with Gamblers - Boo did an awesome opening, got the mini with weaves twice, but the closing had the formidable teeter in it... however, it was the 2nd to last obstacle, & it was almost the finish line - Boo did the best teeter he's ever done & got the gamble! Yeah Boo!
Blast & Bizzie are still in Adv Gamblers, so they ran FEO... Blast qualified & had a pretty nice run, Bizzie would have qualified, but she was overtime since she took the scenic route & did the DW before we started the gamble, but they both got the gamble! A great start to the evening.

Standard was next, & it had some tricky parts... Boo was clean up to the 2nd last obstacle - that same teeter in the same place & I thought, oh, he's going to do it & the little bugger ran past the teeter! So much for that! Bizzie ran pretty well, but had a couple of oopsies, popped out of the weaves on the 10th pole... so she didn't Q. Blast did pretty much the same, missed a jump when I thought he was committed, but he ran pretty well.

Jumpers was last, it was getting really late & I think the dogs were really tired... Boo was overtime, which surprised me - he started off slow, but sped up in the middle.
Blast ran awesome, but he came out the tunnel entrance at the beginning, which he's done a few times in the past, but the rest was clean & really nice.
Bizzie said it's past her bed time, & was trotting around, so I picked her up & left.
I think hormones play a big part in her behavior, & she just came into heat yesterday, so I'll chalk it up to that.

It was a really long evening, but lots of fun anyways!

Oh, & the big news, Cactus got all her contacts & Q'd the Standard run!

Trials & Tribulations

We came back from our first outdoor trial this past weekend. The weather was really crappy.
I knew Blast would have a tough time with more distractions than usual & also the ring is not fenced, just a rope around it which is above his head, so that didn't help.
Fri nite was cool & very windy. I only ran the dogs in Steeplechase. Boo managed a Q, Blast was very stressed & ran out of the ring to poop. (The judge said he should have got a Q for leaving the ring to do it!) Bizzie did a little fiddling around, so she was slightly over time.
Sat morning was very cool, around 2 degrees. Bizzie ran well & earned a Q in the first Masters Standard course, so I was very happy with that. Boo had 5 faults, but I can't remember why... he really didn't want to do the teeter again... urgh... Blast was distracted by the dogs warming up & couldn't concentrate.
By the time we ran the second Masters standard, it was raining & blowing & Bizzie just walked around looking at me like - you must be kidding... Blast was once again distracted by the dogs warming up (both times the weave poles were at that side of the course, so he couldn't weave)
Only Blast ran snooker, & he managed a Q, by then there were no dogs warming up cause everyone was trying to stay inside their tents to stay dry.
Last course of the day was jumpers & I pulled Boo & Bizzie due to the weather. Blast ran pretty well, but he missed the first jump so had 5 faults. At least the weather didn't bother him.
Sunday started off cool & windy as well. Boo ran a beautiful opening in Gamblers, but there was a teeter in the final gamble, so he refused to do it...
Bizzie & Blast both got the Adv gamble, so I was really happy with that. I haven't done much distance work with either one of them. Boo got another Steeplechase Q, but I didn't enter the others. Biz was eliminated from the last jumpers round - I got out of position, she stopped & then left the ring to pee. Blast finally got it together mostly & got his last Adv jumpers Q.
The weather finally got nice around noon on Sunday, it was too bad it couldn't have done that on Saturday. It was nice to see some agility friends we haven't seen for a while, & despite the weather we had a great time!

Training & this & that..

I have so much to train & not enough time it seems. I've been going for physio for an achilles tendon problem, so I hope it gets better soon.

I'm feeling that the Derrett system is too much pressure for Blast & I am unable to help him enough & still stay within the rules of the system. I've been focusing more on skills the past little while rather than running courses.

We had a great time at the Terry Simons seminar.. I mostly ran Bizzie & Blast, did one gamble with Boo. Blast ran a nice jumpers run on Sunday, but we missed a jump (my fault).
Not sure what the issue was with Bizzie, but she did not want to run on Sunday, refused all the weave poles, etc. I took her to the Chiropractor last week & her back was out a little, but I'm not sure that was the cause of her stress.
The gambles were difficult, but I didn't expect my young dogs to do well since I've not trained distance with them.

Hopefully we can get outdoors now to do some practice since that adds a whole new layer of distractions for the dogs. I'm still working on Blast's contacts since he gets stressed easily if we drill them too much. With Bizzie, we need to work on collection when there is an inviting tunnel in sight... and they both need work on weave pole entries. Those are on the top of my list anyways. I've been working a little on a start line for Boo since I've mostly run with him to get his speed up. He's been doing pretty well, but we'll see what happens in a trial situation. He still has teeter issues in trials, which is difficult to fix since he seldom has an issue in training.
Yesterday was Boo's 6th birthday! Hard to believe - don't know where the time has gone!