I'm thinking I should just stick to 8" dogs. Maybe that's all I'm capable of.
Another UKI trial this weekend. Kraft went 1 for 5, the only Q being yet another novice jumping leg that we don't really need. The rest were E's. Two chances at novice agility, both train wrecks. Then masters series, jumping was a train wreck, and agility was actually surprisingly going really well since I thought it was harder than the jumping course. Until the closing line. I fell behind and had to handle it with two rears. After I reared the first one, I realized I was just too far behind and the jump was actually in my way of the path I would need to take at the right time to get him to turn. I had to make a split second decision to layer the jump or take one more step forward to get around it. I decided to take the step forward while giving him a verbal "turn" cue. Off he shot over the wrong jump, doing a beautiful "turn" on the wrong jump. I hate rears. They're so ambiguous. He really wasn't wrong.
There were these two women there from Canada I've never seen around here before. They had some really nice BC's (of course). After one of my runs, I think it was novice agility where I stopped dead after obstacle 3 when he darted into the wrong tunnel entrance behind me and had a silent hissy fit with myself for about 5 seconds, after which he proceeded to leap the dog walk contact (not a miss, a leap), one of them asked me what breed Kraft was and said what a nice dog he was. I'm sure she meant it in a nice way. But I've never been one to take compliments well and I just don't think it's the right time to give one when someone just came out of the ring, clearly frustrated to the point of stopping dead after 3 obstacles and considering just walking out of the ring and going home. Part of me wanted to respond with "You think he's so great, YOU run him!" and hand her the leash. I'm not sure how she didn't notice how NOT ready I was to talk about how wonderful of an agility dog he is at that moment. Maybe SHE could have gotten him through. Maybe it's just me that stinks and can't handle my dog. That's pretty much how a compliment like that feels at that moment. I know that's not really how it's meant, but I can't help but feel that in the moment.
I don't know. I'm thinking about just not going to Perry this year. Maybe we just need to stay local and work on some skills. But I feel like I'm not really getting any where doing what I'm doing. I'm stuck. I'm not getting any better, but I don't have any where to turn for help at this point.
Agility is like that sometimes. And how you see yourself in the ring and how someone else sees you, can be really different. Weve all been in the ring and felt like it was a disaster and then we watch the video and it wasn't that bad. I think you are much to hard on yourself. But I understand. My team mates this weekend were both upset with their runs. One wanted to go home and told me she sucked. She didn't suck but having to leave the ring after two jumps, (because they had fault limits, when you Eed , you couldn't finish your run) was just hard to take. Its just such a big negative and you didn't get a chance to fix it. It was very emotional weekend, and lots of people were upset with themselves. You know what, I didn't watch one person and think, "Wow, they suck". LOL, lots of people struggled. It will get better. Plus, I think its hard to run two very different style dogs. Its hard to get your timing together on the fast dog. I cant seem to run Java and Miley right. Either Miley and I are doing well or Java and I are doing well. But hardly every are they doing together at the same time.
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