Journey
Journey is two. He is taking agility lessons and he loves it. I recently moved him up to an intermediate class and he is doing very well. He is running courses up to 20 obstacles. He does 12 weave poles without guide wires. He is learning layering of obstacles (away from me) and he has a very solid "stay", as many as three obstacles out. He has been a spectator at two different agility trials. Everyone in his class agreed that he was ready.
He opened out of town, at a NADAC trial. We were both very excited about it and although there were a few unfortunate bobbles in our plans: such as a late start, and not arriving in Newport until 10:00 pm on Friday night and worse yet, an injury of some sort, to my back, which was complicated by a 4-1/2 hour drive to the coastal location where we camped in the RV.
I walked the dogs and set my alarm for 5:30 am on Saturday morning. Then, due to leg cramps and a few other disturbances I finally got about three hours of sleep. I fed and walked dogs. I unloaded our gear and due to the good luck of finding a very close parking place, I did not need to tote crates, but instead just used the RV for the dogs.
Journey was entered in three events per day. Our first event was Jumpers. I placed him at the starting obstacle and he sat straight, with all his attention on me. I released him and he turned into a different dog. It all began to come undone. He did not look for visual signals, nor did he listen to me as he went past me. He did a couple of laps of the ring, while I called him, being conscious of not screaming in a hostile mannor. I only used his name, without any bad adjectives. He finally came back to me and promptly back-jumped one of the hurdles. The rest of the course involved him missing almost every obstacle. He kept coming back, but sometimes circled an obstacle two or more times before he jumped it. It took forever and when we finally left the ring, he had actually done every obstacle after numerous failures and faults.
I can easily say I have never taken a dog on a course that did anywhere near as poor a performance. I believe our faults were somewhere around 50. It was grim. I put Journey back in the RV and I sat, reflecting all the things that went wrong. I honestly did not have a clue. He was not frightened. He was happy and having fun. The course was flowing and nothing he had not encountered before. I decided it was just a fluke and as I walked the next course, planning our moves, I just knew it would be ever so much better. I would walk out there with confidence that my dog knew what he was doing and I would not chase him. If he got off course I would stand my ground and give him a clear hand signal (not a naughty one) and wait for him to do the right thing, as I knew he would.
That actually worked, for about 4 obstacles. Then I sent him on the A-frame. He came to a screeching halt. NADAC (dog club) uses a rubber covering for their contact obstacles: A-frame, dog walk and teeter. Unlike the AKC A-frame which is wooden with slats crossing it for traction. It is really a better surface (in my opinion) but Journey had never seen it. After three tries he went on the A-frame and he ended up liking it. Of course by that time we were already disqualified and over time.
Okay, third event coming up. New plan: use the confidence thing again (it worked a little). Talk quieter so he has to listen harder. Get his focus even if it means pretending to go on ahead of him. Meanwhile, my back was worse than ever - don't know what was wrong with it.
We started once again with Journey's most beautiful "sit-stay", all focus and excitement. He passed me and headed for the fence separating our ring from the other ring. He had decided to go and watch the dog in that ring, which was doing the dog walk. By the time I got him back by me I turned to discover I had forgotten the course and I really did not know where to send him. I was looking for an orange, number cone, but the wind had blown several of them away. He stayed with me for a couple moments, then I guess he found me too boring and he took off again on his own adventure.
Day 1 came to a close. I went back to the RV and took a nap. I woke up about 8:00 pm. I began analyzing what was going wrong. I was losing his attention as never before. I decided to use treats from the time we left the RV until he entered the ring (not allowed in the ring). We practiced "touch" and "eyes" when I asked him for his attention.
Day 2, I was feeling much better - more sleep and a pain pill. We were possibly a little bit better, but hardly noticeable. The focus words helped a little and again, the confidence, which was getting hard to fake. By this time I had decided that it was impossible that he could screw up every single run. The law of averages said we would at least qualify in one event. Right? Wrong. I think our best event was Jumpers. We almost nailed it as far as doing all the obstacles, but I was having trouble and we did not make time. He went off course at one jump.
Once, when I painfully, verbally pushed him over the last obstacle, the crowd cheered us. I prefer to believe the cheers were for me. The crowd did like him though and he truly had a wonderful time. As far as the way he was acting, he was as proud as could be. I am not sure he knew what we were there to do. His performance bore no resemblance to his class performances. He stopped to sniff in circles whenever he found an interesting scent. He stopped to watch a crow flying above us. He went to visit the judge and it never seemed to occur to him that he should stay with the woman he went in the ring with. He has never done that in class. He is really kind of a do-good in class. I don't know what happened to my sweet and obedient dog.
All in all he managed one Jumper event with no course faults. He had a time fault of 8 seconds though. He got 4th place, but no "Q". On all the rest of the events he got both course faults and time faults. He did always manage the 4th place, but no "Q"s.
We continued our trip to Florence, where we visited with Aunt Zelma and my cousin Dolores. We had a leisurely trip back up the coast. The rest of the trip was a lot better. It could hardly have been worse.
Camper Cove, near Cloverdale, OR
Pirate
Quest & Pirate
Quest
Pirate
We went to Journey's class on Tuesday. He could not have been better. Every run was near perfection. I told our class members that his performance bore no resemblance to his performances at the agility trial. We have been practicing at home and he is moving along with so much skill, it is beautiful to watch.
About competing? well, I have not figured that out yet. I really don't know who that dog was. The trial was outside. His classes have been mostly inside barns. At home we practice outside though. At class I determined I would go back to treats and lots of praise and encouragement. He accepted those perks, but he did not need them. He knew exactly what he was doing and he glowed with the praise that he always loves.
Journey
