Lonya's first AKC trial

Lonya had her first AKC trial this weekend!  I went into the weekend hopeful but realistic.  I know that I have lofty goals for this girl, but I also don't want to put too much pressure on her too quickly!

I am either getting better at managing her stress level at trials or she is adapting to the hectic environment.  I keep her away from the start gate until we're next up, so she's not crowded there.  And when we go to enter the "ready" area, I carry her in and set her down.  While we wait, I try to get her to play with me as a stress release. And, at the end, I have her leap into my arms, and I carry her out past the spectators then put her down and take her back for her cookies.  What I really liked is that today, in one run she was a little stressed going into the ring.  But, when I put her down, I could see her relax and go "oh, I know how to do this stuff".  She is learning!

So, her runs.  She was entered in two days, two runs each day.  One Jumpers With Weaves and one Standard.

Saturday Jumpers With Weaves.  I was nervous!!   And it showed.  LonLonLonLonLon  Really?  I don't do that normally...  She did pretty well, the course wasn't too difficult.  She only NQd due to the back jump (no off courses allowed in JWW).  I was happy to see she got her weaves on the first try (after calling her off the off course jump!).  And, she visited the ring crew for a minute.  Nice rear cross at the end though!



Saturday Standard  I was really very happy with this run.  She had good contacts, the dogwalk looked "different" to some dogs and the slats on both the walk and the frame were bigger than she's used to seeing.  She had refusals on the broad jump and the tire, both are obstacles she hasn't seen that often before.  But she did the chute really well!  Not sure why I told her to sit on the table...when I've been training an automatic down.  I think I panicked when it looked like she was about to jump off it!  She did end up Qing this run, with a 90 and a second place.  Leg 1 towards her NA!



Sunday Jumpers With Weaves  It was really hot and I should have wetted her down.  She was really distracted for this run.  I really think I also need to work more jumpers courses with her, we mostly work on Standard courses.  I probably should have just called it and not made her do the weaves...but it's hard to think like that in the ring (for me at least).  And I wanted her to push through her distractions...  Another nice rear cross at the end.



Sunday Standard  I wasn't sure what to expect.  I did wet her down before this run, so at least she was a bit cooler.  She had a very nice opening, and called off the Aframe to the teeter pretty well (though I was surprised we didn't get a refusal on the teeter).  Some weave problems again, but she did them.  Again, probably should have just moved on..but it's hard when you "know" they can do it!  Not sure why she skipped the aframe, unless it was because I had called her off it the first time she went to it.  And a very nice last four obstacles.  She Q'd with a 95 and a second place.  Leg 2 for her NA!




So, it was a very successful weekend, more than what I was expecting!  She could get her NA much quicker than I anticipated!   We're not ready for Open right now, not sure where we'll be at in a month or two.  I need to work on more handling type stuff and Jumpers courses.  I'd like to speed up her weaves a bit too, but I think that is a confidence thing!

New Blog

I can't figure out how to access my old Blog, it's linked to an old email account.  So, I'll start over!  I'm going to be realistic this time and figure to only use it to post trial results...so I have somewhere to keep track!  I may do other stuff too...but don't count on it!