My dog is not perfect, my dog is not a machine.

Apparently this is what I have to start telling myself, especially after this weekend.

Missy has been running very consistently the last several months. In July and August she had perfect weekends where she didn't make any mistakes. She's become a very reliable flyball dog. I think I've gotten so used to this, and now it's very frustrating to me when she does make little mistakes here and there. One thing she does that I thought she had gotten over is purposely leaving the ball. She knows she's racing, so if she sees the dog is ahead of her, she will hit the box without trying to get the ball and come back as fast as she can. The problem is, if she does that, we get a No Finish. She did that this weekend for the first time in a while and I'm just like.. really??? I thought we got over this? My friend had to remind me she's not perfect. She's going to make mistakes every once in a while. I know she's not perfect, but I was still like grrrr Missy!!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Missy ran on 2 teams on Sunday full time. The last races for both teams were back to back. Of course, the first race of the two went to 5 heats. She was tired. Then in the second race, we had an incident in the second heat. She was the start dog on that team. Right as soon as she turned at the box, someone dropped a metal folding chair on the tile floor outside the ring. It was loud and I instantly knew she was going to have some sort of reaction. Sure enough, she stops, drops the ball and runs back to me (without the ball, and around the jumps). The judge didn't blow the whistle or anything, so after the heat was done, I went up to the judge and asked if that was outside interference. He agreed and we re-ran the heat. I thought she was over it, but Missy ran up to the start/finish line, then turned around because she was obviously still freaked out by the noise. I re-ran her and she did the pattern, but very slowly. We still had another couple heats to run. She usually runs 4.5ish, but was now running 4.8+. I think it was a combination of being tired AND worried about those darn chairs. After it happened, I didn't baby her and say, "Oh it's okay!" But I was talking to teammates and the judge and it's completely possible she picked up on my being upset. I was mad that a chair was dropped, upset that she freaked out. I know she can't help it. She's a pretty tough girl and isn't bothered by a lot of things, but loud noises like that and wire crates being slammed closed really worry her. She's not bothered by thunder, but doesn't like fireworks. Doesn't care about the teeter in agility. So she does have some noise sensitivity. And she also has "off" days where something bothers her that doesn't bother her any other day (plastic bag caught in a tree, for example).

I asked Mike (our club owner and a judge) what he would have done as a judge and as the owner of the dog who got freaked out. I was worried it was more of a training issue than an outside interference. Mike said he would have blown the whistle as soon as he saw a dog freak out about the noise and not wait until the heat was over. And he agreed it was an outside interference and not a training issue. Of course, I'm a worrier.. I'm worried this is something that could happen again. So do I work on desensitizing her to metal chairs being dropped? My friend thinks it's genetic, and even if I try desensitizing her, there's a chance she's always going to have issues with loud noises.

I love Missy for who she is, and all of the qualities that make her an amazing dog easily outweigh her flaws. She's not perfect, she's going to make mistakes.