Every Trial's Progress with LaMesa--Greater Louisville Training Club

There are times that I don't think I see much progress with LaMesa and agility trials, but then there are times that I see a lot. We're coming so close to being a solid team.

At the Greater Louisville Training Club's Kentuckiana Cluster, I felt like we were finally gelling, which is surprising since we hadn't trialed since November and not trained very consistently over the winter.

Our first run was Masters Jumpers 8" Regular, and I was so happy when she nailed the weaves perfectly the first time. Then a mistimed blind cross might have cost her her rhythm to knock a bar, but she handled the push so well when I realized my mistake. But everything felt solid.



Then Standard came and she kept the bars up, but she misread my moves for the wrap and she pulled off the jump. Oh well...she was again solid on her weave poles!!



Sunday's runs I was just wanting some clean runs--no dropped bars, no miscues. Well, we got the "no dropped bars" part down! And again another day of solid weave poles! The Jumpers run had one oddly-placed jump that seemed like it was a good idea to either blind or front cross. I performed a front cross with Gus (that post to come if you're asking "Who's Gus?"), but I had enough time to do a blind with LaMesa. Poor decision. I didn't get deep enough in the jump to cue her on the blind. That was my fault. But the second pull off was her fault...I believe (if I'm wrong, please correct me). But, again, clean weave poles!



And, finally...we finally got a Q in Masters Standard!! That makes for our 3rd Masters leg! We ended up in third place in a class of like 35, with some stiff competition. Her run earned her 28 MACH points, and we probably could have been faster. I tend to be more conservative in Standard with LaMesa because I need her to stay focused on the task at hand. At the table I wait until the judge says "Go" before I take a deep breath and the cue her for the next obstacle. When the second the last jump was a panel jump and I saw it move when she jumped, I almost had my heart in my throat. But, she was clean! (I don't have the video, unfortunately.)

So we're getting there...slowly but surely, we're getting there (which is the only thing she's slow about, haha). We're becoming a team!

Here's the wrap-up from Dally's weekend.

Gotta Love Agility at Hamilton

This past weekend, we returned to the Hamilton Dog Training Club's AKC Agility Trial at the Game Time facility. I love this trial. I don't really know why, but I think it's because Dally usually does really well at the facility. Sure there are some negatives to it (it tends to get rather warm in there the later it gets, if it's tall to small the days are long for us), but it's in a nice area and the foot and equipment is wonderful.

Dally racked up another QQ on Saturday with two great runs. I was a little concerned with how she'd do, considering on Friday she started limping pretty badly on our walk. An emergency trip to visit Dr. Forry, her chiropractor, revealed it was more soft tissue than anything else--she was probably a little sore from the longer walks we went on the day before. So she was put on Traumeel (thank you Merinda and Melanie!), and she seemed to be fine the rest of the weekend!

Here's her Masters Standard run from Saturday--the speed demon! We ended up with 26 points on this run.


By the Jumpers, she was a little slower, but we still got 9 points:


On Sunday, she was moving and grooving so fast, I couldn't pull her off of an off-course tunnel. The chute was to the left of the tunnel, and they were supposed to go teeter, jump, turn left to chute. Well, she locked onto that tunnel and took it. (I made the mistake of calling "Tunnel" even though my body was turned towards the chute--my mind was reading that she was going to the tunnel and I was thinking "Not the tunnel!" So I said "Tunnel!" instead of "Chute!" Oops.) Oh well. The rest of the course was fast and she had fun. She made up for it with 6 points in Jumpers later that day.

Dally likes to remind me we can't be perfect all of the time, so I always have to thank her for keeping me grounded. I am loving running her right now--we're having a lot of fun and I don't feel stressed when we're running any more. That's the icing on the cake right there.

LaMesa has some good news to share from her time at Hamilton, but I'll save that for tomorrow's post. ;-)