Before I recap our weekend trial, I'd like to apologize for the lack of blogging this week! All my free computer time has been used for our annual Dog Paddle! I think I finally have things organized & ready to go :)
So last weekend, Porter, Stout, & I all went down to Bowling Green, KY, to a NADAC trial. We have been on a trialing break since mid-June.
Why the break? Well, it gets expensive now running 2 dogs. And Porter does well with a little vacation now & again (as do I!). And I needed some time to sort through Stout's "social disease" (as Penni calls it) :)
Well, I think we've had a (small) breakthrough on that front!
Yay Stout!
Yes, Stout qualified twice out of 6 runs! Which doesn't seem that impressive until you realize that those were the first 2 runs on the first day! It was some sort of corgi miracle! :) I thought we had turned a corner!
But then, the following day... He was pretty friendly again :(
It was still honestly better than before. His head was in the game, but every once in awhile, he just couldn't help himself :) However, he would come back as soon as I called him. And it didn't happen on every run. And I was able to have him recover & finish the runs strong.
He even qualified in Chances - the class with the distance line! Now granted, the line is not that far in Novice... but it did have a dogwalk in it, and he hit the contact!
Porter did not do too badly either:
Yay Porter!
Porter only ran Jumpers & Chances each day, which are all he needs still for his NATCH. While it would have been nice to qualify in all of them, at least he did Q in Jumpers each day :)
So now he only needs one more Jumpers Q :) And 6 more Chances Q's :( Definitely won't be getting it this year...
We really need to practice some more distance stuff before Champs...
Both of the Chances courses were extremely hard. Here is Porter running the Saturday one:
Believe it or not, Stout qualified on the Novice version of this one!
So all the work I've done with Stout in the last 2 months is beginning to pay off :) My class has stayed late on numerous Mondays so that I can run him with them standing around (thanks!). I've taken him to some drop-in classes. And we do some warm-up work outside the ring before our turn.
And maybe he's just finally starting to mature... :)
It really is difficult running agility with an uber friendly young dog. Stout's dad had to work through the social disease. He finally began competing in Agility last Fall -- he was nearly 5 years old -- by then he had competed in enough other venues (that weren't as exciting as agility) and had learned to focus on the task. He would still prefer to be leaping in human laps and giving out giant, slurpy kisses, but he stays the course. Stout did very well last weekend -- it is great progress!
ReplyDeleteSo I have 3 more years of this?? :)
DeleteYay for Stout! It's all coming together.
ReplyDeleteThat chances course does look really hard, wow!
That whole figure-eight portion in the chances course looked kind of evil. I won't lie -- I hope we don't run into that course. ;o)
ReplyDeleteIt was probably one of the harder ones I've run. I thought the hard part was going to be pushing out to the hoop in the middle of the tunnels (which it was for Porter).
DeleteBut the deceptively hard part was actually getting that figure-8 portion. The only dogs who got it (and there were only a couple) were the really slow dogs...
Most dogs came shooting out fast enough to take the off-course hoop, no time for a switch.
I looked to see what the course name was, but now I don't remember...