Spirit Joy

So Spirit got to class tonight and did gorgeous, perfect contacts every single time. Apparently her contacts are only going to be a problem in the ring. Which means it will be a very expensive problem to solve, because the only way I know of to stop the behavior that only happens during a trial is to put her in the trial environment, and if she blows a contact pull her out. Hopefully she'll get the message sooner rather than later.

A definite plus is I found out they will be doing run throughs again in Miami for the next 3 weeks. So I'll be doing the 2 hour drive each way, paying $20 each time for 90 seconds of ring time. Ah well. Whatever it takes.

Spirit did offer the teeter tonight, which thrilled me beyond words, but she's still somewhat tentative. I can tell she's still not completely comfortable so right now the plan is to skip the teeter in the trial this weekend. There's another trial in Miami the first week of March, so the goal is to have her doing the teeter there. She still has several classes, 2 days of camp, and 3 run throughs, so hopefully that will be enough time.
 
Calliesmom said:
you need to come here- only $5 for our match.
maybe we need to raise our price:winkgrin:
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Wow, I TOTALLY need to come to you! I spent $70 in entries alone for this weekend, and that's for 2 days. Add to that hotel, food, gas........

The entry for Miami in March is even worse. I think I spent $140 on just entries for 3 days!
 
Cara Sandler said:
Wow, I TOTALLY need to come to you! I spent $70 in entries alone for this weekend, and that's for 2 days. Add to that hotel, food, gas........

The entry for Miami in March is even worse. I think I spent $140 on just entries for 3 days!
Click to expand...

trial entries are $23/$12....
Miami is a very expensive area......

we have lunch for our workers so you'd save money there too.....
I'm sure our hotels are cheaper too:winkgrin:
 
So, we're back home after our agility weekend in Vero. Yesterday was Spirit's first day in Open Jumpers, and it was a pretty difficult course - several discriminations, including a jump/weave discrimination. The course went jump, weave (in a straight line) , then there was another jump straight in front that was off course. I was trying to push Spirit to the correct jump, and then rear cross to the #4 jump, which was off to the side, but it didn't work :-( She wound up wrapping the first jump and basically doing a threadle, then heading back into the weaves (WRONG!!!!!) It looked very pretty but was, alas, off course. She also hesitated at the 10th weave pole but did keep going. So we ended up not Qing in that, and I was actually starting to doubt whether either one of us was ready to be in Open. The course was so difficult that only 4 dogs out of 27 got a Q.

Then came today. Much smoother course, and I felt pretty good going into it. I tried to do a blind between jumps, and sped up to get in front of Spirit. She, in turn, sped up to get in front of me. So I wound up doing a rear cross and it worked beautifully! I was very surprised about that. She did perfect, gorgeous smooth weaves, but I crowded her a little when she was heading in the tunnel, and she wound up refusing it the first time (honestly, who gets a refusal on the TUNNEL?????). But she corrected it right away and raced right through, and that was the only thing called. So we got a Q and 95 points, for second place. She was actually faster than the first place dog but because of the refusal got second.

Either way, my confidence got a huge boost today. Spirit also let me leash her up after both runs (YAY!!!!), though today she stopped at the end of the course and thought about it before coming over to me. Hopefully that won't turn in to a problem. We'll just have to see what happens next time.

I also found out about a huge agility trial in Perry, GA in April. Is anyone here going? I'm thinking about driving up for it.
 
Congrats!
When you watch your video, have a look to see if you're slowing down (even slightly) before the 10th pole. I was talking about the 10th pole pop-out with my trainer on Friday and she said that's usually what causes it. They hear the cadence of your feet change and look up to see what you're doing instead of paying attention to what they're doing. Kind of like when a dog misses the last obstacle because the handler slows or stops when they think the dog has it nailed. She's taught me to always pretend that there's another jump after the last obstacle and after the weaves and to not slow down until she clears it.
Not sure if that's helpful for you, but I'm passing it on in case it is :smile2:
 
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