Dahlia, CTL1

Dahlia and I went to another CPE trial this last weekend.  We ended up just doing one day again and even though I wish I could have gone back the second day I was thankful for the day of rest since I'm still struggling with a back problem and recovering from a rather long bout of respiratory infection and bronchitis.

We did all four runs and that's something that is somewhat new for us.  When I first started going to trials I was afraid that Dahlia wouldn't have it in her to go back out so many times.  So we did two or three runs in a day.  That meant there was a lot of sitting around.  There still has.  Those four runs take all of about four  minutes (plus warm up time), but we're at least not waiting for three hours to do our next run.  As I'm finding out, Dahlia has no trouble doing four runs in a day.  She has time to rest and relax in between things.  So I figured why not?

We had a fairly successful day.  We started off a bit slow, probably due to the stress of the trial atmosphere (it was very crowded indoors!) and ended up NQ'ing in Jackpot despite completing the gamble (we were over time).  The second run was Wildcard and while it was slow, we completed it under SCT (standard course time) and Q'ed.  This was the one and only video I have of us over the weekend.

It's also the first time anyone has gotten a video of one of our qualifying runs!





We had another unsuccessful run with Jumpers.  Dahlia was actually looking really good until she had an itch.  We ultimately ended up going around one jump (the one she stopped to scratch in front of) and went far over course time as I sat there and was unable to stop her from scratching.  Such is life!  At least she was amusing.

The final run of the day was Snooker.  Ah, the dreaded Snooker.  As it turns out I really like the strategy of the game and I think it might be my favourite. Shhh...don't tell anyone!

We tried Snooker twice at our last trial and were almost successful (one time we were too slow; the second time we got whistled off the course after the opening).  I didn't have high hopes for this one because Snooker is really difficult and one part required making sure she didn't go back into the tunnel she just came out of.

Imagine my surprise when she was super excited to get out there, tugging and leaping for treats.  I set her up and she couldn't wait to go.  She came off the line well and completed the opening with no problem.  We got to the closing sequence (labeled 2 through 7) and got ourselves through to 5 before the whistle blew and the game was over.

We ended up with 21 points for the opening and 14 points for the closing, netting us a total of 35.  As we only needed 24, we Q'ed.

That gave Dahlia her fourth mini-title: CTL1-S (Level 1 Enthusiast Strategy title).  The four titles she got meant that she was awarded her full Level 1 title.  It was a very exciting moment and even the judge came out and hugged us.

Dahlia shows off her title ribbons

Not so Wordless Wednesday

Dahlia and I went to another CPE trial this past weekend.  I decided to do something I don't usually do: go to both days of the trial.  I have a tendency to go to one day, do a few runs, and call it a day.  This means that we never really settle into the trial atmosphere and I miss out on the fun of the second day!  Max 200, where we went this time, tends to be a small trial full of a lot of amazing people.  Plus it was the last outdoor trial of the season so I figured why not?

I'm glad I did!

Over the course of the weekend Dahlia and I did 7 runs.  We Q'ed in four of them.  We figured out how to work together really well by the end of the weekend and came very close to getting our full level 1 title.  But I bobbled and she saw a tunnel she wasn't supposed to take and despite my desperate attempts at calling her off of it, she went in anyway.  GAME OVER.

But besides that bobble, we were very successful at running courses (instead of just trotting them).  Some of that I have to thank a fellow competitor for.  She had a dog much like Dahlia and said she never did start line stays with him.  While I can do them (and do them well!) in class, at trials putting her in a sit means she loses all excitement and so comes off the start line incredibly slow.  In our first couple runs (one Q, one not), I put her in a sit and it wasn't until she got to a tunnel that she picked up speed and started looking like the agility dog she's been becoming.

In the later runs when I just held her until the annoying mechanical thing said "GO" and then took off running, she was much faster right from the get-go.

In fact, we finally got that darned Full House Q that's been eluding us all along.  We've just been too slow to get enough points.  This time we got 2 points more than needed and finished under course time.  The first buzzer didn't even go off!  I was very proud of my girl for getting out there and working in the cold (first day) and rain (second day) and giving me her all the entire time.

We ended up with a new title, so Dahlia is now Dahlia CTL1-H, CTL1-R, CTL1-F (Enthusiast titles: Handler, Standard, and Fun).

What a difference a month makes (aka Dahlia's second agility trial!)

Dahlia's first agility trial was a nervewracking experience but in the end we had a lot of fun and brought home one qualifying ribbon.  It was far more than I expected for the first time out and so I was quite pleased.

But I kept watching the video of us at the trial over and over again.  I realized she was slow and hesitated because I hesitated.  Because I was scared she'd blow past an obstacle and I desperately wanted her to take them all.  It finally got through to me that if I just keep running, it's much more likely that she will keep running.  The week after the last trial, we looked like this in class:





We moved so much better together and we're both speeding up!

So I took that to the trial this weekend.  How did Dahlia do?  Well, she blew Standard entirely.  We seem to have a problem that is really surprising me: Despite rocking the A-Frame at class and being pretty comfortable on the dog walk, she completely avoids them in trial situations.  Admittedly, some of the issue the first time out was that I was so focused on the A-Frame (which was obstacle #3 in the run) that I looked away, disconnected from her, and lost her entirely before she even hit the second jump.  So our Standard run, while not a disaster (she hit every jump and tunnel past that beautifully) was not successful.  NQ.

The second two runs we did were Colors and Wildcard, both ones that we NQ'ed on at the previous trial.

Well, I'm happy to report that Dahlia totally nailed both of them.  We got a qualifying score with no faults on Colors (28.07 seconds) and Wildcard (30.43 seconds), which netted us our first (very small) agility title: The CTL1-H, Level 1 Entusiast Handler Games title.

Here's Dahlia sporting her fancy new ribbon and looking quite proud of herself!

Dahlia's first agility trial!

This weekend we went to our very first agility trial.  For the first time, we opted to go with CPE (Canine Performance Events).  Everyone I spoke to, including our instructor, assured us that it was the most relaxed and most newbie-friendly of the venues.  And ultimately, they were right.

We had a fantastic weekend full of some ups and downs.  We did four runs, and NQ'ed on three of them.  Two were a total disaster.  But she got a qualifying score on one run (Jumpers Level 1) and a first place ribbon for it, both of which were nice to go home with.  I didn't expect her to get any Q's this weekend so I was really quite happy with that!

Perhaps the best part about it was how focused she was on me and how hard she tried through each and every run.  The one thing that threw her for a loop and ended up causing the three NQ's was "contact anxiety."  She wouldn't get on the dog walk in one run.  I had been worried about the dog walk from the get go.  She's comfortable with it usually, but this one was different from the others that she's seen.  It had no slats, was not rubberized, and I watched many dogs who hit it hard and nearly slipped off the ramp leading up to it.  It was also a little wobbly. Our instructor flat-out refused to let her dog get on it.  Dahlia was apparently smart enough to refuse it and instead of being a good human, I kept trying to get her on it.  After three times I finally gave up!

She also struggled with the A-Frame, flat out refusing it once and starting up it a second time but then deciding against it.  Like the dog walk it was not rubberized, though it did have slats and was more sturdy than the dog walk.  But I did watch some dogs slipping on the way down and so ultimately she was probably smart for getting off it instead of hurting herself by continuing up and over.  Had she been able to do it, we would have had a qualifying run for the Colors course and might have gotten one for Full House as well.

Overall, though, it was a fantastic experience.  I had my down moments (like when she totally blew the Full House course), but mostly I felt pretty good about what we had accomplished.  And now I know some things that need to be further trained!  I'm hoping to find some fun matches (aka Show 'n' Go's) in the area to get her up onto equipment she hasn't seen before.

But we'll also be going to another trial.  This one is on December 3rd.  We'll be doing three runs (Standard, Colors, and Wildcard) that day.  It should be great fun!

Dahlia was happy enough to model her ribbons.  Doesn't she look proud of herself?


 


And for anyone interested, here's a video of our second run of the second day.  This was the Colors course where she started up the A-Frame but then turned around and came back down before getting too far.  Unfortunately I forgot to have someone videotape her really good run!  Try not to laugh too hard over how slow she is.  She was faster the day before, but not by much!