Long time , no posts

Sorry about that. Im not sure what my problem is. I think about things I want to write all the time. I just never seem to get them written.

I took my dogs to the river sometime in the last couple of weeks. LOL

Last weekend I went to an agility trial (BRAC trial).  There some really fast dogs 16 inch dogs there.  Java ran 5.8 yards per second in jumpers and it wasn't fast enough to beat the 1st place dog in Masters.  She was beaten by 2 seconds.   On Sunday, Java just wasn't herself.  That morning she stayed in the bathroom while I was getting ready. That just isn't like her. She usually follows me around.  But she ate her breakfast. We got to the trial and she seemed ok. We had a nice standard run except for my late cue from the a-frame, jump , tunnel entrance. She took the wrong one. My fault.   After that she didn't want to go for a walk. I thought maybe she was hot. She would walk around the arena, just not outside.  The jumpers run, she was excited and pulling to get to the ring. We had a nice run but she dropped a bar. She didn't get any lift over the bar. It was weird. And she was 5.5 yards per second.  Then toward the end of the day, I wanted to go down the steps to the rings, and she refused to go down.  Oh, yea and in T2B, in the morning, she dropped 2 bars. Java doesn't drop bars.  So I figured something was up.  That night she kept acting scared of the thunder storms even thought she has never been afraid in the past.  She wouldn't eat any bones and usually she eats her's and steals everyone elses.  Monday she was better but still didn't seems right.  So Tuesday I had my son take her to the vet.  Her lab work was normal, normal urine but he said she was sore in her lower back. He gave her a shot. She seemed better Wednesday but then threw up Wednesday, and Thursday.  Friday , she was back to normal. At least I hope so.   So she is now on rest.

She did manage to wait for the teeter to hit the ground before leaving all weekend. A first for us, so I guess our new "scratch" at the bottom of the teeter is working. Keeping my fingers crossed on that.

Miley almost got a double Q on Saturday. One dropped bar from that. ugh!!.  She took off to early for the jump.  Sunday , she Qed in Standard and  then dropped a bar and off course. Ugh!!  Im really hoping I get one double Q with her before she has to retire.

I feel like I spend all our money at the vet.  Roxy came in the house last night and wouldn't open her left eye. Ugh. Still wouldn't open it this morning, so I took her to the vet. Yup,she scratched it. I don't know how. One minute she was ok, the next, she wasn't.  

Miley still isn't sleeping through the night but  I think it just maybe a habit. I put a mattress on the floor in the living room and she didn't wake me up 2 nights in a row. Then the next night I slept in my room and she woke  me up at 2am. I came out into the living room and slept on the mattress and she keep scratching me to get up at 4:30.   So who knows what the heck is going on with her.  I think they want to start her on a antidepressant and see if that helps. We go back this week for a check up. Oh yea, I forgot to tell you about her kidney problems.  I went to the vet that specializes in bladder and kidney problems a few weeks ago.  She is still spilling blood in her urine.  Her ultrasound of her kidneys showed  she has damage . They should be able to see two different seconds of the kidneys on ultrasound but they couldn't. It all looked the same , which the vet said means she has chronic kidney damage. Right now her kidneys are still functioning well. Her BUN was only slightly elevated.  They did another sterile urine culture which showed blood but no infection.  We tried Miley on a medication that relaxes your bladder, to maybe stop her from getting up at night. It didn't help. We upped the dose, it still didn't help. Now we are trying one more course of Abx but it isn't helping. So I guess the next step is the antidepressent to help with weird behaviors. We'll see. She will have to be monitored for kidney failure with blood work several times a year.

I hate my job , which Im sure doesn't come to a surprise to any of you who read my blog or are on facebook.  I thought things would be better this year but they aren't. So Im changing schools.  I need a change.  Im going to work at the high school and only be part time.   So hopefully this will help me. Life is to short to be this unhappy in a job you spend every day at .

Should I stay or should I go.

That was the theme for the weekend trial. LOL.   I laugh now but its not really funny.    She just didnt want to hold a start line or contacts.  Ugh, it was stressing me out.  I dont want her to stress in the ring but I dont want to be stressed either. 
First up was Exc. Jww.  You will see in the video, that she creeps all the way to the 1st bar. I released her and figured she would drop that first bar. But she didnt.  We actually Qed. For the first time in excellent jumpers.  We've only run exc. jww about 40 plus times ( two years)  and we finally Qed. I sure hope it doesnt take another 40 times to Q again. 

Next up was open standard.  She jumped the  dogwalk contact and I thought she stressed because of that but after watching the video I think she saw we were going to the table. Ugh.  This was a rough run, you may not want to watch it. Its hard to watch, at least for me.




The next  day started with T2B.  We usually do well in this class.

I timed for the big dogs.  Lots of dogs went into the wrong end of the tunnel even when the handler was really cuing the correct entrance. It was  weird.  Jump # 9-10 got a lot of dogs too. They went straight and over the a-frame. It doesnt look tight  from 9-10 but it was. Big dogs probably had one stride in between jumps there.  I didnt get this run on video  but we got the correct tunnel entrance but she jumped her a-frame contact. Then I was so worried about 9-10 that I pulled to early and pulled her off 10 . Ugh.  The rest went well.  I was so disappointed after this run.  Jumping that a-frame contact  just was so upsetting. Im not sure why. That standard run yesterday was 10 times worse than this run but it really got me down.  So I thought I would leave and go to a park. I had 5 hours until my next run. So while I was driving to the park my mom called. My grandfather had passed away during the night.  Its wasnt unexpected. He was tried of living. He just wanted to die.  He was 90 years old and his body wouldnt do what he wanted it to , so he felt like whats the point. So he just stopped eating.  I felt really bad for my  mom.  She was crying and I wanted to go see her. But I was pretty far away and had dogs with me. I told her I could come Monday but she said a storm was coming in land so it was to dangerous to come.   After I was done talking to my mom, I took the dogs to this park that pretty close to the trial. They added a dock on the water , so I took a few pictures.

 If you had dogs that like water, it would be a pretty go place to go. Except you would need to keep a lead on your dog, it looked like the current was strong. Then I started walking the path.  There was a  guy  walking ahead of me and he turned around and started walking toward me.  It was pretty deserted. He asked me if my dogs would bite him. (Weird question. Also , not to long ago  this lady was running  with her dog at a park in the upstate of South Carolina. This guy came over to her and checked out if her dog was friendly. Then he beat her and raped her)   So I told the guy I didnt think my dogs would bite but they do have teeth and they are dogs. Then Java started barking at him. So that took care of that.   I walked a little further but the grass needed to be cut and I was worried about snakes so I turned around. I decide to go to this other park. I think it was called Fletcher Community Park. I had been there before but they have really expanded it. It was awesome.  We had a great time.

Thats  where I took that picture at the beginning of my post.

I wish I had brought my water shoes. I took my shoes off and just walked in the water barefoot.

There was several places that dogs could swim.  Tons of walking paths. This was my kind of park. The path I chose to walk was almost always shaded. I felt so much better about everything after being at this park. It was just what my soul needed.

I went back to the trial. I ran Open standard next. I knew that Loretta wanted me to leave the ring if Miley stressed .But I also knew that I needed to mark Miley jumping these contacts or she is just going to keep doing it. Ugh!!  So I knew I had to mark it and I knew she would stress.  When you watch the video  you will see what happens.  I marked jumping the a-frame contact with "hey".  Not harsh or anything. But Miley stressed. Then she came around and got back on the a-frame. I told the judge "sorry".  I thought she  was going to whistle me out of the ring but she didnt.  You will see miley did all the rest of her contact correctly.  And I made her get on the table. I'm not sure if any of this was the right thing to do but it is what it is.

Next up was Exc. Jumpers.  Im not sure what happened here. I slowed the video down.  She takes off way to early on jump #6 and crashed on the bars.  I thinks she was going to stress after that but I got her back. Into the pinwheel, she missed two jumps. I have no idea why. If you see something I did let me know. So no Q there. LOL, that was short lived.


Also, on Sunday, I decieded to take the leash off early before they said "ready". To give her  and me a little more time to settle before I lead out. I was hoping it would give her a chance to relax and not creep so much. But after watching the video it looks like Im looming over her. Maybe I need to give her more space.



I met Sarah from the blog world. She runs kate, http://keraleskate.blogspot.com/, an awesome dog.  And she had one of her other dogs, Java , with her.  She was pretty great too!!

Tough week

Ive had a tough week.  Work has not been nice. People are mean and they think they are allowed to say what ever they want to me.   A parent, who I had called her about her sick kid, said she would call me back  and let me know if she could get off work to come pick up her kid. She even asked for my phone number. She didnt call me back so I put her kid on the bus home.  Ive been stuck at school before waiting for several hours for a parent to come get their kid. So if they arent coming, I put them on the bus. Well she shows up 10 minutes after the buses had left. She was mad, which I can understand.  I told her that I was sorry but you said you were going to call me. She denied that and called me a  "stupid white person". Nice.   Then another kid, with a chronic condition came to school, right off the bus, to my office, sick. Really sick.  After 2 hours, no parent, and she wasnt improving at all, I called an ambulance and sent her to the hospital. She was admitted for two days. When she came back to school , she said that her  dad  kept saying I was CYA.  Nice, huh?   I guess the hospital was just CYA  too, right?  There were more upsetting interactions but I dont feel like writting about all of them.  Ugh!  I just not sure I was meant to do this job. 

So I wasnt in the greatest mind set for the trial this weekend.  My runs werent until the afternoon, so I figured I would just drive the 2 hours up to the trial instead of staying at a hotel. That morning I took the dogs to the park for a walk before I would leave.  We are walking down the path and its early, 7am.  No cars in the parking lot , so I didnt think anyone was there. I had let Miley off leash after getting down the path a ways.  There are several entries onto the path from the woods. You cant see the person until you are right there because of the dense forest.  All of a sudden there was a big black dog. I wont say the breed because someone will be offended.  I called Miley, and the dog went after her. He slammed her to the ground. She got away and she slammed her again and got a mouth full of hair.  Miley is screaming and the guy just laughed.  Miley gets away and I tell her "go". I pretty sure she can out run this big dog because he looks out of shape and over weight.  She takes off and out runs the big dog.  The man never said sorry.  I couldnt deal with him, Im just thinking of Miley. She is still running for her life down the path. She cant hear me calling her. She is in flight mode. Im thinking, great I just lost my dog.  She finally stops. I call her but she wont come.  I decided to just wait her out.  I wait and wait. She finally comes to me. Thank goodness.  I dont see an wounds on her. She physically seems fine.  Now I start debating if I should even go to the trial. My mind isnt in the right place.  Plus, what if she is freaked out, I dont want that to transfer to the ring. I decided to go, and see how she is around all the dogs. Any sign of stress and we wont go in the ring, we'll just work on being relaxed.

We ge to the trial and its packed.  No crating room anywhere. They even put up these extra platforms for people to set up crates.  I found some friends and they made room for me.  Miley seemed ok. I walked her around and around. I didnt see any signs of stress. She went up to a couple of bigger shelites that I know and she didnt even raise her lips to them like she usually does.  Wow, maybe she was ok.
Our first run is ISC jumpers.  Tough course but I feel like we can do it.

 We started out nice. I didnt even see the triple coming out of the tunnel as an off course. Well, she went off course, and the stressed.  I couldnt get her back, no matter what. I finally had to leave the ring. My poor dog. I felt terrible for her. I dont want her being stressed out.



I had to go straight from that ring to Open standard.  It didnt even cross my mind that I shouldnt attempt the table. What the heck is wrong with me.  Why didnt it cross my mind?  Well, I guess you can figure out what happened.  She wouldnt get on the table, and stressed about it.



Now I have another run. All my runs were right together.  Im thinking maybe I shouldnt run her at all. I just dont know what to do. I talk to a couple of people. Everyone has a different opinion.  I decided Im just going to do #1-5 and then take the final jump. Run out and reward.

 I didnt walk anything but my plan. But after watching people run it, I decided it was easy enough and we could do it. So without walking it, we ran it.  She did great except she pulled out of the weaves. I think I decelerated to much and she thought I stopped. She stressed circled a couple of time and then went back into the weaves and finished great.  At least I got her back. (no video)

We had a little break.  An hour or so.  Now it was time for Exc Fast.  I just wanted to keep it fun and fast.

She ran great and got the send.  She took 1st place. At least it ended well

The next morning I felt mentally much better.  I decided to go up early and bring my table. I stopped at a park. We walked , played ball and did some tables.  We then went to the trail site.  Usually I can run her in the barns before our runs at this site. But there were all these horse things going on so you werent allowed to go anywhere because of the horses.  But I finally did find an empty barn with no signs about the dogs and no horses. We ran and played ball several times before our first run.  It was hot as heck and the site wasnt air conditioned. 
Open standard was first.  I really, really thought she was going to get on the table.  She didnt.  I just moved on. So still no table. I screwed up for good this time. I have no idea how to fix it.  I dont know why she feels the table is stressful. I started thinking. You know how with kids, you have to have rules and boundaries.  And even though they get mad and fight you about things, the rules and boundaries make them feel secure. They know someone is in charge and in control of things. Maybe this table thing is like that. She pushes her startline, jumps off the teeter,  and sometimes self releases  on the a-frame.  I never correct it at a trial becasue Im afraid of causing her stress. Maybe thats was is causing her stress. She doesnt think Im in control. The rules are different here and she doesnt understand.  Hmm, something to think about.
Next up was exc jumpers.  Man what a tough course. Even people who are good at running their dogs had trouble. That was un-nerving. There was that stupid off course triple after the tunnel again. Off courses were everywhere.  So now Im stressed.  I dont want to make a mistake and cause my dog to go off course and then stress circle.  Man, was I not feeling good about this.

We made it though but I did make some mistakes.




But she didnt stress circle. I was sooooo happy.  Even though we still haven't Qed in exc jumpers in 40 runs, its ok because she didnt stress out at my mistakes.  WhooHoo
Last up was Exc FAST.  They already had the walk-thur. I missed it because I was running my dog.  By the time I got my walk-thur, me an another person,  almost everyone was gone except for the people in the club running the trial. The other ring was already broken down.  We ran, didnt get the send bonus. She ran great, and no stress.  But when we left the ring, she wouldnt take any treats.  Then we walked up the steps, made it to the half-way point where their is a platform. She had diarrhea all on the platform. Poor dog.  When we got home, 2 hours later, she vomited a large amount of undigested food.  Poor dog.  Weird, she ran well for a dog not feeling good. Today she seems fine. Im not fine. I kept wondering what I should do about everything.  And I have to go teach an agility class tonight and I feel like I suck and shouldnt be teaching anyone anything.

Getting Closer

Well, Im beat.  Woke up at 4am to be at a trial by 7am.  And it was freezing there.  Windy and in the 20's.  My fingers were killing me, the wind just whipped thur my gloves.  No fun. The trial was in doors but you do have to go outside to let your dog use the bathroom and the side of the ring I was on, the practice jump is outside.  Brrrrrrr!  I did take Miley out to play ball and Frisbee. I bought one of those chuck-it Frisbee and she loves that thing.  
So first up was ISC JWW.  When I saw the course I thought, crap I cant do this.  I heard other people saying, while walking the course, I might just skip this run.  LOL

So we did the best we could.  I didnt run as planned. I had planned to pull in between 4-5 and front cross but I was to far behind. ( the theme of the day) But what I did worked, although not pretty. Sorry , the person starting the tape started a little late. I think it starts at jump #3.

We did stay on course. To bad we dropped a bar. But we had the second fastest time except for a dog that dropped 3 bars. 31.38sec. Funny it doesnt look like a fast run. We took 4th place. Only 1-3rd place got money. I guess in ISC you can drop a bar and still Q. WhooHoo for us!

Then it was a long wait for Ex. JWW. , 4 hours. Ugh! I tried to play with Miley outside but it was just to cold for me. I didnt work because I didnt want to hurt my back and it does feel better. I know that its rude not to work but I couldnt help it.

We had a good run but I pulled her off jump #6 ugh!  I was planning to front cross between #6 and #7. And I guess when I went to front cross, she pulled off.  The place that lots of dogs had problems was #10-#11.  Lots of dogs curled in after #10.  I couldnt really tell why. I think there handlers were to far behind which they were reading a deceleration.  I was more worried about pushing Miley to far and the would good over the #14 jump (off course) instead of coming to the #12 jump.  But that didnt happen. I was far behind and then had to handle from a distance which isnt as effective for speed.  But if I went in there, she would have gone off course.


No Q but we still had a good time. And NO CIRCLING!!! WhooHoo, we just might Q soon!

Trial update

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this posted but I was trying to edit video but my software isnt working.  Ive tried a patch and uninstalling and reinstalling.  Nothing worked.  So I will just post them as is.

Saturday started with Adv/PII Gamblers.  

I had a course planned to end with the tunnel at #12 before starting the gamble.  I had timed it twice and that was at 35 seconds, 5 seconds more for when the buzzer should sound for you to start the gamble. Well , we were faster than that so I had to add #13-#15 to eat some time to wait for the buzzer.
Anyway, when we stepped to the start line, I got nervous. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing. Ugh!  I hate when that happens. And I just couldnt shake it.  Once I started running , I was fine but  I think I freaked my dog out. It felt like she ran to dogwalk really slow but picked up speed the second time.  Then she started dropping bars.  And of course when that happened  it felt like she had dropped all the bars.  It didnt help that someone said to me, "What wrong with your dog, she dropped a lot of bars".  Ugh. I was freaked out for a while.




Im glad I video tapped it so I could see she didnt drop every bars like I thought she had in my mind. LOL  So I figured I do one more run and if she drops another bar, Id pull her and call it a weekend. She didnt drop anymore bars all weekend.
Oh yea, She"'Q"ed and took 1st place. 

Next up was starters standard.  Lets just say she wouldnt get on the table.  I think she thought about it but just couldnt do it.  So we moved on, she missed the teeter because I was behind and didnt cue it.



Pairs was next.  We had a great run.  Someone has it on their video camera and I cant remember who to be able to ask for it.  But we Qed and took 2nd place.  We didnt have any errors so it must have been time that we got second. We ran the 2nd half with the squared numbers.

Miley was way wide over that jump before the weaves.  I couldnt believe she pulled in enough to make her entry but she did it. WhooHoo.  Half a course works great for us. LOL

Last up was Steeplechase/perf speed jumping.

I had planned to RC at #10 the tunnel.  I was worried if I front crossed there she would take the a-frame.  Well when I  RC that tunnel , it pushed her off of it. Then she went into stress mode.  She ran as fast as she could , 2 big circles around the ring.  I called her to my side and low an behold she came into me. To top it off she didnt take any equipment during her stress circling so we didnt get an 'E".  When she came to me, I cued the tunnel and we finished the 2nd half of the course beautifully.  We qualified!!  WhooHoo.  We would get to run the second day for money.  Several people came up to me and told me how awesome that run was. How cool it was that my dog didnt take any jumps during her run around the ring.  LOL , It didnt feel cool when her mind is exploding into stress but she got it back together.  Sorry, I dont have video of that run.

Sunday started with starts snooker. Needless to say we didnt "Q" that run.  We did make it thur the opening but I wasnt at the place I thought I would be and couldnt get her to the #2 closing without going off course. I dont know if you can tell what I wrote on the course map. I had planned to be at the #6 tunnel but she took the #6 jump. We were still ok because the 6 jumps were bidirectional.  But you can see it would be hard to get to the number 2 tunnel.  O'well, at least we made it thur the opening.

Oyea, she also pushed her startline.  I forgot all about my "no stay, no play" rule. Ugh! So I released her which is why I was behind and she took those #6 jumps instead of the tunnel.  

Next up was Grand Prix.

We were so close on that one.  I pushed her off the second to last jump when I rear crossed. Ugh!  I will be practicing rear crosses in the future.  It was still a great run! And she didnt get stressed when I pushed her off the jump.

Next was Steeplechase/Speedjumping day 2. 



Great run. If we hadnt screwed around at the weaves we would have taken 1st place. We were less then one second behind the 1st place person.  Who cares!  We won 19.00.  LOL   We had such a great weekend.  To bad about the stupid jumpers run I posted Sunday.  Ugh!

The weekend

We are home from our wild weekend in agility.  We had  a great time and probrbably the best runs  ever .  Here, this picture is a peak at what happened.

Im going to tell you about our last run here so I dont have to talk about it when I post the rest of the weekend. This run is the only really negative of the weekend. Well besides Miley wouldnt get on the table but thats nothing new.
The last run today was advance jumpers. Well I looked at the course map I thought it look tough. I thought I should just go home.  But I didnt think that was the right attitude.  I thought I should try it. Here is the course map.

When I walked it , it was even worse.  I knew I couldnt run this and keep Miley on course. Ugh! We were ok until the #8 tunnel and she took the wrong tunnel entrance. Then we were ok until #15 to#16. It doesnt look like it on the paper but the angle there was tough, I called her but to late , her brain exploded and she started stress circling.  I felt terrible , after she had done so well today. I think she circled me twice , I sent her into the tunnel and then did #19 and #20.  Crap.  Not a nice way to end after such good runs earlier today.  I was talking to someone after wards. She told me next time I feel like a course is just way to hard, design a course that will make my dog successful. So what if it isnt what the judge designed. You want to keep your dog happy and confident. I wish I had done that with this course.
I will post the rest of the weekend tomorrow......  We won money in speedjumping.  WhooHoo.

Saturday

Saturday went much better. Still no "Q"'s. Of course I had to walk both rings at the same time. But because I wasnt going to do the table in Standard, I wasnt to worried about it. Plus it was pretty straight forward. I really needed to walk Jumpers because it looked like a tough course. I was suppose to be in the second walk-thur, they split the 12inch dogs because the trial was so big. But then I realized I would be running standard when my walk thur was suppose to be. So I walked first. I continued walking when the judge in the Jumpers ring was giving the briefing. I know that's rude but I didn't have a choice because they were already starting in Standard ring and I was the 12th dog in the ring. I ran and got Miley and went to the other ring. I was able to go outside and warm her up, do the practice jump and stretch her too. We had a good run, no zommies.
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It was suppose to be a-frame to the table but I put her through the tunnel instead. Im not sure why she questioned going in the 2nd tunnel. Then I rear crossed the triple, might as well work on that since we cant "Q". And she didnt drop a bar. WhooHoo. It felt like a great run. Someone came up to me and said "Great run, you must have "Qed". I laughed. I said we didnt do the table. She laughed then and said, "I didnt even realize it".

Next was our Jumpers run. Here's the course map.


I first walked it starting on the right and then rear crossing after #4. But then I realized that I would be behind her and I needed to be in front to cue the correct tunnel entrance. I had planned on being before jump #8 so I could get her head coming out of the tunnel. But she was running fast, and I really had to run full out (at least for me) to be able to cue that correct tunnel entrance. To do that I layered the jump , which worked but I wasnt able to get her head coming out of the tunnel and she went off course. Of course then she ran around me a couple of time before I got her back. The rest of the run was awesome. When I watch the video it cracks me up. I know Ive said this before but I felt like I was running as hard as I could and it just doesnt look like it on the video. LoL. But I got all the front crosses in. WhooHoo and she did the weaves even with me starting to pull away to make the front cross. Our time was 30 seconds which I felt was pretty good considering the lap she took after the off course.



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It was now only 9am. Our next run, Excellent Fast, wasnt until 6:30pm. There was no way I was waiting around for that. I decided to go home. I dont run Sunday until 1pm. Plus I needed to get home and talk to my son about the importance of doing well at college . And inform him of the reality he will face if he doesnt do well. A dog not doing the table is nothing compared to a son not doing well in college. Its been causing me a lot of stress and worry. You start to question what you did wrong as a parent when they dont get their act together. Ugh! Im not sure if I will be going back tomorrow. Its a 2 hour drive to the site. It will depend on how I feel tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone for your supportive comments for the last 2 days. It's really helped me.

Friday

Yesterday was a very emotional day for me. I guess really the last two days have been that way. I ran Miley in Open standard. The table was right in front of the a-frame. It would be hard for me to walk it without her feeling like she wasnt suppose to go there. So I sent her and when you watch the video you will see she really avoids it. So then she got the zoomies. I first tried to get her back into the weave poles which were right after the table. But it was stressing her. So I went for the next jump. She got back on track and finished nicely. When I left the ring this guy said to me, "what a really nice dog". Then through out the day different people came up to me telling me what a great dog I have. "She fast", I would love to have your dog, What a great dog". I know people were just being nice. But I took it as, great dog, to bad you suck as a handler. I realize this was all me, no one made me feel this way but I just couldnt shake it. Why were they saying she was great when she is zooming around the ring?






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Then was Excellent Jumpers. She broke her start line. But I was able to get back on track even though I wasnt in the right place. She got the correct tunnel entrance. Then took an off course. Ive only watch the video once but it looks like I cued her correctly. It was probably late. Then she went over the correct jump and I sent her off course with and arm fling. Ugh! I got her back again. She popped out of the last pole. Our finish was sloppy.

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After that I went to see an animal communicator. Im not sure I believe in animal communicators but I thought it was worth a shot to figure out the table issues. She told me Miley is sensitive. That she could take or leave trials. She likes the work but not the atmosphere ( all the dogs and people). That when she is in the ring, she feels like she is alone. When she is running she feels ok. But when she has to stop for the table, she feels the overwhelming feeling of the atmosphere that she doesnt like. Then she said, its like if you go to a party and your arent a social person. That feeling you get, feeling so uncomfortable. OMG. I hate going to social events. All I think about when Im there is "Can I go home now". Every time we have to go to a function for my husband job, it just stresses me out. This made me feel terrible. Thats what Im doing to me dog? Crap! So after that we left and went to a park for a long walk. Then we went back because we still had Excellent Fast to run. I got something to eat. Which I then realized it had been 8 hours since I ate. That could be why I was feeling so emotional. I felt much better emotionally after eating. I had lots of leg pain yesterday and couldnt get it under control. Nothing I did helped. (medicine, rest, walking). I finally broke down and took my Lyrica. I dont like that medicine because it makes me tired. After a while I feel like Im lugging an extra 20 lbs around with me. But it did help my legs feel better before the last run.

We ran Excellent Fast. It was fun, well mostly. I started with the weave poles. She popped out at pole four. Then I did the worse thing for her. I stopped. She started running big circles around the ring. Im not sure how but I told her "climb" and started running. Some how she pulled in and got on the a-frame. The rest of the run was beautiful. She even go the distance bonus with the correct tunnel entrance. We didnt "Q" because we only got 56 points and we needed 60. But she was awesome. We I left the ring someone said, "Great run". Later when I was cooling her down, someone else said, "She was on fire". Sorry, no video. Here's the course map and how I ran it.

Ok here are Saturdays runs

Here is our jumpers run from Saturday. She went in at the second weave pole and if you watch she actually has to turn to take the wrong tunnel entrance.


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Now the crazy Open Standard run. She breaks her startline before Im even to where I want to be and I had my back to her. Then I get her back and we are good until the table. Its hard to see, but Im at the far left of the screen when the video starts.


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And to show how excited Miley can get. Here is what she does when we are getting ready to see the ferrets.

BRAC trial , day two

Went back to the hotel last night. It was pouring down rain. Yuk! Miley and I were so tired that we fell asleep at 8pm. My daughter called me a couple of times. Once was to ask if I could make her jeans in to Capri's when I get home. I told her not to call again because I was sleeping. "What, its only 8 o'clock!", "I know, I'm just really tired". Miley didn't bark once all night and I had the TV turned off all night too. Probably no one went outside because it was pouring down rain all night long. Then it was still pouring this morning. I went to the trial site early again. Miley wouldn't use the bathroom because it was pouring down rain and she would just stand there like it was torture. I took her up to that barn area and let her go in there. I figured all the other stock animals must go in there, what's the difference.




So my plan was to run the first run of the day , which was Jumpers. If she acts crazy, then we are going home after that. No reason to wait 4 hours to have a crazy run. But she surprised me and ran nicely. Although still a little slow for her. She usually runs a 145 yd run in about 23 sec and these courses have been 120 yards and she getting the same course time. But at least she wasn't crazy. She wanted to break her start line and kept acting like she was going to break but didn't. The only problems where she went in on the 2nd weave pole and dropped a bar. The bar drop, she took off to early.

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Open Standard:

We stayed around for our second run. I took her up to that barn area 3 times to play ball. The last time was right before our run. They had already started running Open Standard. I really wanted her to burn off some energy before getting in the ring. Plus it had been raining so much that you couldn't really walk your dog around the area. I decided to run the course with a big lead out. I know she broke her start line yesterday but I wasn't paying attention and that was probably part of the problem. I couldn't decided what to do. If I tried to do a post turn after the first two jumps , I really thought she would take the a-frame or at least go really wide. I know that the a-frame looks really far away from the jumps but when you were out there is didnt seem that way. Plus if she cant hold her start line, then I shouldn't be out there. Here was a chance to practice. Plus when watching the other dogs run, the ones that ran with their dogs and then rear crossed at #4, they either pulled their dog off the jump or their dog dropped the bar on the triple. So what did I have to lose. I did the lead out. You will see I look very unsure of her start line. But she held it and off we went. She read the lead out with the turn and did the triple without dropping the bar. And into the weaves. Perfect weaves. WhooHoo! Then the tunnel, would she take the correct tunnel entrance? Yes she does. I'm getting excited now. Most of our trouble spots are behind us now. Now the big one, the table. She gets on the teeter and then hits the table. And........ off the table. Crap! She does a huge victory lap around the ring , starts coming my way, and I send her into the chute. Over the dogwalk and she holds her contact. A couple of jumps to the a-frame, beautiful. Then the last few jumps and we are done. Beautiful run except the !#&@$! table. Guess were Miley had dinner tonight?. Yep, on the table outside .

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So we are done until next Friday, when our trial begins. At least I can sleep at home. I hope it doesn't rain next weekend. Everything we had was covered in red mud. Even Miley's face was red. So she had a bath tonight. I cant imagine washing 3 or 4 dogs. Thank god I don't have to do that. Right now I'm washing all the stuff I brought with us. Everything is red. I hope it comes clean.

Doesnt she look happy to be in her crate?

Trial results

Its been and up and down day. Miley just doesn't do well the first night at hotels. Every noise causes her to bark. So I had to have the TV on the whole night so she didnt hear doors closing and people talking. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well. When I woke up at 5am,I started changing the channels on the TV. Miley jumped over to my bed and started licking my face. It was almost as if she was saying, "O'Thank god you finally woke up". Silly dog. Then all she wanted to do was leave. She kept jumping and barking at the door. If I took her out, she just kept pulling to the car. Finally I gave up and got in the car at 6:30 and drove to the trial site.

Our first run was Open JWW. She ran well. A little slow for Miley but she looked great. For some reason she took the wrong tunnel entrance. The right tunnel entrance was a straight line from the weaves, jump, the tunnel. She had to veer off into the wrong tunnel entrance. Hmmmm. But otherwise nice run.

Then came Standard open. My legs had really been hurting. I had taken medication early in the day hoping that would keep the pain away. But it didn't work. So I sat in the chair for about 2 hours and the pain was finally gone. But now Miley didnt get much exercise. The course looked very nice with a few off course traps. I didn't feel nervous at all. I set Miley and walked out pass the first jump. ( it was jump, dogwalk). Before I even turned around, my dog is running pass me. Crap. She circles me a couple of times, I finally get her back and we run the dog walk. Things are back on track. She did her contacts , did the pinwheel and teeter. Now for the a-frame. Since she was wild , I figured she would jump the contact but she didnt. Ok, then the table. She jumped right on. Ok, now we are cooking. But no, she jumped right off, the starts running big circles around me. Crap. People are saying, "she's looking for sheep". Ugh! I finally get her back and she does nice weave poles and finishes the course nicely. Crazy dog. Its funny, when that stuff starts happening it feels like you are out there forever. But it only last one minute or less. So after the crazy run, I took her to this barn area and made her chase the ball until her tongue was hanging out. When I went and looked at the Q rate for Open Standard, on 4 dogs out of 33 Qed. Most of the dogs were crazy like Miley.


Then there was Novice fast. I think its was now 5pm. Long day. Miley did ok. She didn't break her stay and started great. She was a little crazy and took some things on her own but she got the distance send bonus and did the high value obstacles. So I knew we had enough points and we finished the run. WhooHoo. A little later I went to check my score and I didn't have enough points. You need 50, they said I had 45. I knew that wasnt right. I didnt video this run. See, always tape your runs. I went to the score table and they pulled my card. They had the send bonus points on the card but not the points for the actual obstacles. So we had 60 points. We Qed and Im pretty sure took 1st place. Ill find out tomorrow when I go back.

I'm having Internet problems. I'm typing this in my car by the front office of the hotel. I couldn't get access in my room. If I can later I will post the videos.