Tally at 2.5

Since we are coming to the end of our summer series of Agility with Andrea, I thought it might be a good idea to journal where we are at in Tally’s training.

Last night Andrea had two courses set up.  My classmate chose the more difficult one, which would probably be categorized as an “international type” course.  Depending of course on who you ask, because some people really don’t like that designation….

For Tally I chose the more flowing course.  I really didn’t feel like trying to pull him around awkward jump angles and having him plow through jumps because he was confused about where to go.

So here is where we are at during training:  If I remain calm, if I give good direction, he pretty much goes where I tell him and keeps the jumps up.  And he is still fast.  If I get worried, freaked out, hurried, he mirrors that and bars come down.  So I really need to work on that.  Flow….  Got to get it.

We talked a little about running courses in trials and how it feels.  I often feel that I don’t see the dog much when I am running at a trial.  I mean, obviously when they are weaving, and sometimes in between obstacles, but the definition is a bit blurred.  Like I am not really in the moment.  Which can probably be attributed to stress, and probably something I need to work on.

Lots to think about.

Monroe AKC September 20, 2015

It was a blustery but warm day.  Kind of bizarre weather for us.  It seemed like it was about to rain all day, but it didn’t.

Just running Tally in Standard and JWW.  It turned out to be a one judge trial, because of low entries, but the judge was super slow.  One example of his slowness, we were first up in JWW.  I was waiting and waiting for the judge to finish whatever he was doing out on the course, fiddling with this and that, and then I heard the “ready”.  So I went in and proceeded to set up and do my lead out.  The dang judge started yelling at me, saying I couldn’t leave my dog before “ready”.  What????

Anyway, Tally ran really well, he took out a bar on the 3rd jump which may have been my fault.  He also had another bar, I think at 6 or 7, where he had started to get really wound up and barky. I stopped and said “Tally!”, which seemed to get him to calm himself a bit, and we finished up with only those two bars and a very fast time.  Not too bad.

After another LOOONG wait, they finally had the standard course set and Tally was awesome!  Just one bar, which was a jump which the dog had to turn to right out of the chute can forgive that, it is difficult for any dog, much less a young dog, it was a panel jump and he just barely nicked it, it wasn’t like he just barreled thru.  I was very pleased with the run, perfect contacts, great impulsion/obstacle focus!  Yay!

Better

We were having a lazy morning yesterday when I realized that I better get on the road if I was going to make it up to Mt. Vernon in time for Tally’s runs.  I forgot about Labor Day traffic.  Finally got up there and they were just finishing up the walk thru for Open JWW.  Ack!  A stroke of luck, the judges were having lunch.  So I got to walk the course a couple times and it wasn’t hard to remember.  Went and got Tally out of the car, brought him in and we ran.  Not one of his best efforts, but I think if I would have had more time to figure out my strategy we would have done better.  The course weirdly ended right in the middle of the ring and Tally did NOT want to sit there, as clearly there were more jumps to be knocked over.  But I did get him settled before he had a chance to bite me.

Standard was so good!!!  I was almost in celebration mode because we made it all the way through with no knocked bars and then the 2nd to the last bar slowly, slowly hit the ground.  It was a late bar, but clearly Tally’s fault.  So close!  His contacts were spot on, it would have been a Q if not for that.  Dang!  While I was watching the bar fall, he did get a chance to go for my arm, but I got him to sit before he was able to really get a hold of me.

Evergreen Golden Retriever Trial – August 2015

Can it really be?  Yes it was, Tally’s one year anniversary trial.  I totally forgot about that until I was writing the title for this post.

But this was Hannah’s day to shine.  She started out with standard and boy was she on.  If I only had either a startline stay or a rear at the chute, it would have been a perfect run.  As it was the course went tire, jump, chute.  I need to either do a lead out pivot, rear cross the chute or do a front cross in front of the chute.  So the latter was my only option.  Which I did, but I got stuck in front of her and it cost us at least a couple seconds.  The rest was just perfect.  There was a part after the a-frame where she started to come in on me just a bit and it looked as if she might miss a jump.  I just said, quietly, “get out” and she corrected her path.  Oh my this dog.

JWW was almost as good, except my handling was bad.  We really could have cut some time off, but for my sloppy handling.  But still a very nice run for a 1st place Q.

Now for Tally. I would say, overall, much, much better.  He hit all of his contacts.  One thing was weird, he did do a stop at the end of the aframe, but one of his feet came off.  When he put it back on, the judge “e’d” us.  I am not sure what that was about.  I could understand if he came all the way off the aframe and then put his back feet on, but I am pretty sure that the one foot stayed on the whole time.  Anyway, I don’t care – he had several bars.  And I love that judge.  But the contacts were great!  I didn’t really realize how much better until I read my post about the last trial.  This is wonderful.  Then JWW – which was actually better than I thought it was as I ran it.  Watching the video (I will add the video’s later), I thought it was a pretty darn good run.  And I had the video guy record Tally at the end of the run to show how well the “sit” at the end it working.  NO BITES!!! Yay!