Compliments Are Hard to Bear

When you don't feel worthy of receiving them. 

I'm at a funny place right now with Kraft. All winter we struggled with staying connected on course. I figured once we got over that hump, we'd hit our stride again. Unfortunately, even with staying pretty connected, we still can't seem to get through courses. We did two days of UKI this weekend, two different clubs, two different locations, same judge. Kraft did a total of 6 runs. He already has all the points he needs in novice in the games and jumping to move up, but 0 agility clears. I entered him the first day in gamblers, agility and jumping to try to take advantage of easier courses to get his Q's for the U.S. open while we work on those agility legs to move up. He had a smokin gamblers run to start the weekend, felt really in sync. But then agility we made a complete mess of a fairly simple course and I started wondering if we were losing our connection again. It wasn't a terribly hard course, but he did break his start line again. I shook it off, disappointed that we didn't get the run we need, but there was always the next day. He held his stay in jumping, which was good because I really needed an almost 3 jump lead out but then mysteriously missed his weave entry. I tried to brush that off, it was just a warm up for the next day right? The next day started with Masters series agility. Considering the previous day he had done all novice, and this particular judge likes WIDE open lines for the lower levels, yikes, I knew I was going to have to hold on tight. The course looked very doable, well within our skill range. Didn't matter though. We made a complete mess of it. E'd in three places. I tried not to get too down, I knew that class first thing in the morning  would be tough for him. Next was novice agility. Here's the course:

8-9 was our problem area. He curled toward me and took 16. I had squatted down at the tunnel exit in the walk through. They could see the chute straight ahead, but not the jump. I was hoping that a verbal "go on tunnel" would be enough to get him to commit to the chute before he exited the tunnel, so he wouldn't even consider the jump, but since I had to slow down and read cross the tunnel he felt that and curled toward me. In hindsight, perhaps my rear cross should have been done further back away from the tunnel, closer to 7 so that I could be accelerating when he entered the tunnel. Would have been easier to believe my go on cue that way. Ideally would have liked to already have him on my left for 7 so I wouldn't have had to wait around to rear at all. I wrapped 5 to the right, then had to stay up there and support 6 since those jumps were pretty close together. I considered wrapping 5 to the left by rear crossing it which then would have given him a really good line to 6-7 and I could have taken off immediately and blind crossed between 6-7. But that corner was really dark and I didn't think he would believe me that I wanted him to turn that way. Any other suggestions, I'm all ears. This course was a total heart breaker because he was so perfect on the whole rest of it. I just about wanted to cry. 

Then was masters jumping. It looked tougher than the agility course. But I still thought that, at home at least, we could do it. But I didn't expect much. To my surprise though, he kept his head together and Q'd. I was stoked! Finally, a course where he showed his true potential. I thought he had gone pretty fast. We were a little wide in one spot. I knew the other dog that went clean would be faster. It's a dog from the local Sheltie clique who all are pretty much WTT contenders from the day the puppies hit the ground. I stuck around to check scores, hoping for maybe 3-4 seconds behind that dog. But no, 7 seconds! So despite a really great run, feeling super connected and like we did our very best, there's still no way we can shave 7 seconds off our times to be competitive. 

So it leaves me wondering if maybe he just isn't cut out for the level I want to be at. It's so hard to admit it. I don't want to sell out, stop believing that the terrier can compete with the Sheties. Hell, there are several terriers that ARE competing with the Shelties. Turns out, Kraft just isn't one of them. It's just getting hard not to feel disappointed, like we are a total let down with all the potential he has shown. People were complimenting his runs all day and I wanted to scream at them "did you even see that run?" Each one I received I just felt like we were an even bigger let down, so much potential that we just aren't living up to. 

Sigh. Taking a bit of a trialing break in May. Couldn't afford any with the seminar I signed up for in the middle of the month. Maybe we'll learn something useful. Then again, all the seminars we've gone to thus far haven't really done squat do us. Feeling frustrated and kind of like I want to give up, not agility, but the hopes and dreams and goals I've set. Maybe they're too lofty. I wouldn't feel like crying over failure to meet performance goals if I wasn't hoping to qualify for the Open or tryouts next year or all the other outcome goals I have.