AKC Trial

I went to a 3 day AKC trial.   The trial was well run and ran fast and smooth. We were done in the early afternoon all 3 days. The judge was great. I liked his courses. They didnt look that challenging but lots off dogs were not successful especially in excellent standard. Usually there was only a one jump difference between Open and excellent standard.  Its small one ring trial but inside. Which is good because its way to hot to be outside right now.  The building with the ring is mostly ring. There is a small isle where you can put some chairs, maybe 25 but thats it. So its hard to watch what it going on. There is only room for about 3 dogs to wait at the starting gate. You come in one door from the outside, enter the ring and you leave through the other door , to go back outside again. Crating is in another room and very tight. There are only 2 toilets and by the end of the 3rd day, there was no water pressure. So while you went to the bathroom, you ran the sink to fill up the dog water bowl so you could pour the water into the tank when you were done.  Ugh, kinda time consuming when you trying to make you walk thru ect.  The other bad thing is there is a musty smell in the building. I guess it doesnt bother most people but it really bothers me. In that, your clothes and everything you have smells like that. So I went through a bunch of clothes everyday between the musty smell and sweating when walking with the dogs at the park. Lucky the hotel had a washer and dryer to use. The hotel was awesome!! It was a Hampton Inn and I shared a room with a friend. . It worked out great. My friend may not think so, since my dogs would sometimes bark in the middle of the night when doors closed.
Friday I ran both Ex. Jww and Open Standard.  She blew all her contacts  and I didnt even go for the table. I just wanted to keep her running and not stress.  Then I ran excellent JWW.

She missed jump number two. Im not sure why.  Someone said I pushed her off but when I watched the video I dont see that. So Im not sure why she did that. And then I made the bad mistake of trying to fix it. She stressed and ran around the ring. Bad handler.  I got her back by sending her to the weaves.

I really didnt know what to do about these contacts. I have the travel plank in my car and everywhere I go, I have Miley practice.  I was so frustrated by this problem.

Saturday was a new day. Yea!!  JWW was first.

It was going great until I sent her to the tunnel and ran to make a front cross after #8 and pulled her off the correct tunnel entrance.  So she went into the wrong tunnel entrance and then had an ugly approach to #8. So she took it the wrong direction and then we were back on course. The rest was great.

Then Open standard.

 

So I wanted to front cross after #6.  I ran really wide of the dogwalk to make that FC and she stopped on the contact.  But then blew the a-frame contact. Converging on her I pushed her off the chute and didnt even go for the table. I just wanted to keep her moving and not stress her. I had planned to Front cross and then rear at the weaves to pull her in tight. I got stuck in my cross and she was weaving nicely. I should have to ran the opposite side of the weaves but no I had to stick with my plan. And since I had decelerated so much Miley pulled out of the weaves. I just started laughing and we kept going.

All these blown contacts and me pushing her off of jumps and chutes got me thinking. The last trial, in May, where she had beautiful contacts I was really wide trying to get to different areas of the course. Now this run, I was wide on the dogwalk and she stopped. I thought maybe Im crowding her on the contacts. She has a very wide personal space bubble.
Sunday I decided that I was going to be really wide on the contacts to see what would happen.  Lucky the course allowed that.

It worked, she stopped on all her contacts. Whoohoo, I was so excited.  She didnt get on the table but my friend said maybe the same theory applies to the table. Because I really put pressure on her.  She missed the weave entry, she didnt even try to get in, Im not sure why.



I know there was several mistakes but it was a Q. LOL  So we finally get to move up to excellent Standard. It only took us 3 years. That maybe a record. I still need to fix the table problem. And just because the being wide stuff worked here doesnt mean that is really the issue. Will see.

Last up was Ex. JWW.

She dropped a bar and ran pass # 17.  But it still felt like a really good run. I kept debating if I should Front cross after 15 or rear cross. I guess I should have fronted.


I have lots more pictures from the parks and stuff. I put them up tomorrow.