May GSD

Wow what a fantastic weekend of agility we had weather wise! It was a scorcher!! But there was a nice breeze for the dogs, meaning I wasn't worrying too much about them overheating. All in all perfect agility conditions!! This was one of the nicest shows I have done. Not because of the agility, or the actual show itself, but just due to the company we had whilst we were there. Each day we set up a little camp in the corner, right near the ring so we could watch :) We took our gas cooker up with us and made bacon and egg rolls for lunch each day! Sitting in the sun watching agility, followed by a bacon rolls and ice cream. Bliss!

Agility wise we didn't have the best weekend. Smudge had some good places in Small G1-7 jumping classes. But results aside I didn’t feel any of our runs were our personal best and I didn’t feel any of them did us justice. They were pretty messy and some turns were ridiculously wide, and I just didn't feel we were our usual team. I didn't do much videoing (really must get in the habit) but I did get this jumping. I was soooooo annoyed with myself over this, as I pulled him around that jump by curving away too soon. He is so responsive to my body language that of course he came with me, just as I would want! The rest of it was ok, although i'm not keen on my handling in places!

The agility runs were a different story altogether and were truly awful in my opinion. Unfortunately I seem to have let what happened last weekend get to me. I really tried not to, but I was so nervous that trying to maintain my criteria on the contacts would be seen as training that Smudge was given licence to comletely fly them. Then the briefing stated no training in the ring please, so that made me even worse!! By the third day I was getting really stressed about it all, and ended up doing the sensible thing and not running in the agility. I didn't see the point of running feeling the way I did and knowing I was just compounding the problem.

So I have a fresh challenge!! I think Smudge still releases slightly on my body language and not on verbal alone. So I have decided to go back to basics for a bit and am going to start working with the target on the flat again, and trying to really challenge him to stay holding that target come hell or high water! I am disappointed as I really thought the work we had done throughout the winter would hold in the ring, but it clearly isn’t. I have also decided that I need to toughen up slightly. I am annoyed that I let other people make me feel like that, which in turn I allowed to affect my dog and our partnership. Big lesson learnt over this I feel.

Paul did much better and was fairly consistent over the weekend. His highest placing was a 2nd in the Large G1-7 Jumping, so he was pleased with that. He also won the club trophy for best crossbreed which he was pleased with (very dodgy trophy though - think the see saw is an exact replica of how it looked after he had ran it with Georgia - basically in bits :) - see post below!)

A special mention must also go to Georgia and Obi who won the trophy for the best Starter Dog. As I mentioned in a previous post they haven't been doing agility for very long, but I can see great things ahead for them. They work so hard, and take on board absolutely everything that they are told. I love seeing people getting the recognition they deserve and Georgia's face was a picture when they called her name!! A massive difference considering at the start of the year she was considering giving up agility and taking up knitting as she never thought she would be any good! :)

So now we have two weekends off before Thames. Going to use them to finally tackle the jungle that is supposedly a garden and start sorting out the mountain of things that pile up whilst you are away from the real world doing agilty!!