Spirit Joy

Lanie said:
I keep reading all of these articles online that say it takes at least 18 months of training before you're ready for a trial. That makes me a bit nervous. We haven't been training anywhere near that long.
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Well, I think it depends on the dog and on their definition of "ready". I've seen prodigy dogs that were ready to trial at 15 months of age, and got out there in AKC and q'ed on every single run. Went novice, open, excellent, masters right in a row. But I do have to question how much the dog was jumping full height and doing weaves at a young age :-(
 
Well, after an amazing 4 days of watching agility, I've come to the conclusion that Spirit really is pretty close to being ready to trial, and is possibly ready now. Luckily, there are run throughs coming up in a few weeks, and while they are in Miami and really a traffic nightmare (it's going to take me at least an hour and a half each way in the evening), it will be totally worth it to get Spirit out into a new environment and trying full courses. And I'm seriously considering entering her in the trial coming up at the end of January. I keep going back and forth on it, but after this weekend I really think she could do it. Or at least, she could get out there and stay connected and we would have nothing to lose.
 
Cara Sandler said:
Well, after an amazing 4 days of watching agility, I've come to the conclusion that Spirit really is pretty close to being ready to trial, and is possibly ready now. Luckily, there are run throughs coming up in a few weeks, and while they are in Miami and really a traffic nightmare (it's going to take me at least an hour and a half each way in the evening), it will be totally worth it to get Spirit out into a new environment and trying full courses. And I'm seriously considering entering her in the trial coming up at the end of January. I keep going back and forth on it, but after this weekend I really think she could do it. Or at least, she could get out there and stay connected and we would have nothing to lose.
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I was watching at a trial on Friday, getting Echo used to the environment and I ran into a woman that trains at one of the gyms where we practice. She asked why we weren't trialing. I told I didn't think we were ready yet and she started laughing. She said that we were more than ready and that they've been training 3 months less than us. She has a tiny Corgi and they are really amazing. They were Q'ing every run on the JWW course. Looks like you're right. 18 months to 2 years would be an awfully long time to train before trialing unless your dog had a lot of fears of the obstacles.
 
Lanie said:
I was watching at a trial on Friday, getting Echo used to the environment and I ran into a woman that trains at one of the gyms where we practice. She asked why we weren't trialing. I told I didn't think we were ready yet and she started laughing. She said that we were more than ready and that they've been training 3 months less than us. She has a tiny Corgi and they are really amazing. They were Q'ing every run on the JWW course. Looks like you're right. 18 months to 2 years would be an awfully long time to train before trialing unless your dog had a lot of fears of the obstacles.
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I hope I'm right!!!!! Wouldn't it be fun if you entered Echo and I entered Spirit and their first trial was the same day (even though it was across the country)? I realized that the first run through is the day that the entries close for the January trial, so I'm going to have to make my decision without having the information from the run through. I think I'm going to go back to my original plan of entering her and then if she isn't ready just not compete, and not worry about the money.
 
Well, except for the fact that Spirit has decided that she can release herself from her stopped contacts whenever she feels like it, she did an excellent job in class tonight. Though to be fair to her, it was cool out (finally) and she was feeling particularly frisky. She also did a few 10th weave pole popouts (which she almost never does) but we just put up gates on poles 11 and 12, then took them out and she was fine. And her weaves are SO FAST!!!!! I usually just sort of jog beside her when she weaves but tonight I had to RUN!!!! I'm so proud of her weaves. She also hit some really hard entries, doing an almost 180 degree turn to enter. She was the only dog in class to hit the entries every single time. I really, really love this little girl :-)
 
Yay! I just found out that there will be a run through tomorrow night at Spirit's agility school. It's technically for dogs novice through masters, but I asked if Spirit could come and they said yes!!!!! This will hopefully give me a little more information about how ready she is to trial at this point.
 
Cara Sandler said:
Yay! I just found out that there will be a run through tomorrow night at Spirit's agility school. It's technically for dogs novice through masters, but I asked if Spirit could come and they said yes!!!!! This will hopefully give me a little more information about how ready she is to trial at this point.
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that is great:yes:
having a run thru is a good practice for a trial.

I've entered Destin in our club's trial in Feb. we just had practice last night after being off most of Dec.... he was a little exuberant but really not that bad. I just have to remember that he handles differently than Dixie and the other boys...........
 
Calliesmom said:
that is great:yes:
having a run thru is a good practice for a trial.

I've entered Destin in our club's trial in Feb. we just had practice last night after being off most of Dec.... he was a little exuberant but really not that bad. I just have to remember that he handles differently than Dixie and the other boys...........
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Exuberant is fun :-)
 
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