LaMesa's (Frustrating) Trip at Hamilton

With Dally, I expect to qualify during a trial with her. It hasn't always been that way, but now she's known as "Dependable Dally". (Though she does keep me grounded at times, don't worry--I can't get cocky with her.)

But with LaMesa, it's a crapshoot if we'll qualify or not. We're still not 100% a team and still trying to figure each other out. That's OK--she's only 3. It just some times gets frustrating when I see other "young" teams very successful. But I know that time will come for us, too....soon....I hope.

Hamilton was a frustrating weekend with LaMesa. We're back to having weave pole issues. Whomp whomp. It's back to weave pole boot camp.

Case in point, our Excellent 12" Jumpers course on Saturday:

(Our Standard run on Saturday I left out about four obstacles. Don't ask me what I was thinking--I had just run that course perfectly with Dally. But I figured out that I was off course by the time we hit the table. Oops. Oh well, it was a good laugh for all of us.)

Sunday's runs with LaMesa were probably the most frustrating I've had in a while. Standard started with another weave pole pop-out, followed by a few missed obstacles. She did nail a tough discrimination that her sister didn't make, so that was a positive.




Finally in Jumpers, just when I was losing all hope, we somehow pulled off that rare Qualifying run. That's right--no "just one thing", no knocked bars, no popped-out weaves.




It felt good to know we actually can put together a full, clean, smooth run. I know we still have a lot to work on--my timing is off with my front crosses with her now that I'm doing those more than rears. I had wanted to throw in a blind with that course like I did with Dally's run, but I wasn't fast enough because I was worried to take my eyes off of her. I need to trust her, and she needs to focus a little more on the obstacles than me.

So now we'll work on weave pole boot camp and a few other things. We will be doing one day at the Derby City Agility Association's trial next weekend, then three days at the Hoosier Kennel Club trial (my dad's trial) the weekend after. We'll also be attempting FAST again for the first time since I first trialled LaMesa at the Hoosier, so that ought to be interesting.

Weaves at Harrods Hill

Yesterday I enjoyed a nice lunch break during a cloudy, cold day when I met up with Matt and the Stump Kids at Harrods Hill Park, a park near my old apartment. Matt brought the weave poles and we set them up by the walking trail (and, yes, there were people actually walking/running along the trail at this time). LaMesa was fired up to see me when he pulled up next to the car.

It was hard to get LaMesa to focus on me at the beginning. She was still revved up when I got the weave poles set up and Matt had a tennis ball for Dally, which meant she wasn't focused. Matt immediately started throwing the ball for Dally when we weren't ready for those distractions. It took a little bit of time, but I did eventually get her to come back to me and weave.

After a few minutes of weaves, we took a short break to walk over to the nearby creek so she could get a drink and relax. When we got back to the weave poles, she was ready to work.

This time Matt was able to video us with my phone:






And here are a couple more videos from our session:







It's interesting that this time she struggled with what were usually her easy weave entrances, which were the 90* left hand turn wrap-around entrances. I wanted to try a few things yesterday, which included running hard and fast towards the 90* entrance--which you can see she struggled with.

The last session we had, we made huge progress towards me not having to run alongside her--I could send her into the weaves and then hang back after the first couple and she'd finish all 12! So this time, I wanted to simulate if I had to speed up to get to the end of the poles for the next obstacle, so I'd take off in a sprint as she was weaving. She stayed in all 12 and maybe even sped up a little more! Nice!

So we had an interesting session, but it was good. I enjoyed my lunchtime weave session with the pups, so I'm hoping we can squeeze in a few more before Matt hopefully starts a new job.