Spirit Joy

Lanie said:
There's a lot of disagreement about the "Walk of Shame" My trainer was appalled. I am a firm believer.
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I'm a little late to the conversation but I wanted to jump in here. Back in August I gave Keiran the Walk of Shame for running his dog walk contact; caught him mid-stride within 2 or 3 steps of the dog walk and startled the heck out of him. (He actually let out a bit of a squeel.) As much as I hate the Walk of Shame, because I want him to enjoy playing with me, I also agree with it, when used correctly, because it can teach them a lesson and continuing on allows them to self-reward by continuing to play.

Correct use of a Walk of Shame means it needs to happen before the dog takes the next obstacle or takes off with the zoomies around the ring. As much as it pained me to catch him, it did get the point across and I had no more missed contact that weekend. Admittedly the next two runs were very caucious and I had to play with him at the start line to let him know it was time to play and I wasn't mad at him but I didn't have blown contacts. That carried over into a Teacup trial a few weeks later.

Cara Sandler said:
Yup! And it is so much harder to fix a problem that only happens in the ring :-(
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This is where ASCA comes in handy. ASCA allows training in the ring, sure you will NQ but you can opt to repeat obstacles during your run if you feel it's necessary. If you have an issue that only happens in trials, it is definitely worth looking into.
 
Today after Spirit's aquatics session, I was toweling her off, and I realized that she is FINALLY starting to put on a little muscle! I didn't think that would ever happen - she is just built very tiny and petite. But all our hard work is paying off. She actually has thigh muscles now :-)
 
Last night Spirit had the best class she has had for a long time. She ran a full course (17 obstacles) - and it was definitely not a Novice course. There were about 6 side changes. Spirit looked amazing and most important, looked like she was having fun. I just adore those moments when I look at her and see her smile while she's running. It's priceless.
 
I loved reading your journal! I got to see her Novice on Vimeo, but work network wouldn't let me access any of the others (I'll do that when I get home!)
Wow, what a cute little sheltie!!!! What a total opposite of my experience!
 
2GoodDogs said:
I loved reading your journal! I got to see her Novice on Vimeo, but work network wouldn't let me access any of the others (I'll do that when I get home!)
Wow, what a cute little sheltie!!!! What a total opposite of my experience!
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Thank you! She's a great puppy. But she has definitely struggled at times. I think that she started so young, and then hit adolescence and everything fell apart. Now she's bouncing back beautifully, but I'll be honest, there were times that I thought she really didn't want to do agility anymore. And of course I was very upset, because as much as I love agility, if she didn't want to do it I wasn't going to force her. Fortunately it seems as though she was just going through some kind of phase. Our next trial is the end of October, and I'm hoping she will get out there and just have a blast and start moving up in Standard :-) Because right now she's in Excellent Jumpers and has 0 Standard Qs :winkgrin:
 
Lanie said:
We might be sitting out a trial too if Echo doesn't adjust her attitude tomorrow. We got our Open JWW title, but she's back to not holding her contacts again. She flew off of the teeter at full height today. Airborne. Scared the heck out of me. 2 obstacles after she ran down the A-Frame without stopping. she hit the contact, but she didn't stop. I picked her up and did the walk of shame. 1st time I've had to do that at a trial. Zero tolerance for flying off of the A-Frame. Too dangerous.
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If your dog did a fly off I would recommend having her adjusted by the chiro.My dog did at a trial and he jarred his shoulders and he ended up being out in the shoulders and pelvis and atlas and a few other places.Just a thought.
 
Here's the video from Monday night's class. She's still not running at full speed, and she did self release on a couple of the contacts, but that's the least of my worries. We can fix that in the future.

 
lgore said:
If your dog did a fly off I would recommend having her adjusted by the chiro.My dog did at a trial and he jarred his shoulders and he ended up being out in the shoulders and pelvis and atlas and a few other places.Just a thought.
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Thanks for that. I'll look into it.
 
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