Get Back and Passion

Three days of agility with Terry was fantastic. I really do love his teaching style. He is easy going, up beat, but still gets his point across. He is a very good teacher. I learned some new things, and went with an open mind (sticking with my "year of the new" resolution)

We did Course Analysis on Friday morning- it was good. Although I wish I had done the Threadle portion in the afternoon. Running full courses over and over with Pixel is never a good idea. I'm not sure what I was thinking. But it was a good chance to work on my memory issues with courses, and work through some of Pixels weaknesses- weave entries and lateral motion on sending to a jump. He also talked about a verbal "take the back side of the jump" cue. Pixel understands a body language cue, but I have not put it on a verbal. I will do that though- because I could see in a few instances where it would be helpful.

Saturday afternoon we were in "Distance for Big Shots" and Pixel did much better than Friday. Smaller, more broken down stuff is what she likes. And she really surprised me with how well she did. I already know that distance is one of her main weaknesses, but I got some good feedback and have specific things to work on. Pixel can do a handling gamble no problem- she listens well and does have very good obstacle commitment. Her issue is contacts, and our turn cue is not as strong as it needs to be. I've known about these things for a while now but haven't really been doing much about it. Seeing as how we only need gambles for her ATCHC, I will be focusing on this in training...

Sunday morning we were doing tough handling exercises- the class is called FIGJAM...
It was a lot of fun- and challenging. I actually did a fancy new move for the first time. Terry calls it the "CLC" (california lane change). But it has lots of other names. It's a blind cross, sort of. It was neat, and I think it could be useful for Pixel- anything to keep her moving through turns! We are going to practice it. He also spent some time talking about collection- which is not an issue with Pixel- but I still tried to absorb as much as I could by watching and listening because it could be an issue with Brit one day.

All in all a pretty good weekend- lots of laughter, tequila, and some shooters for good gambling. ;)

I will admit that it was not the same without Wicca. I haven't really done much agility since the whole forced retirement thing. I thought I was doing pretty okay with it- but it was very apparent that I am not. I miss running her- a lot. But I tried hard to focus on the dog I do have to run. It's not fair to Pixel if I'm not 100% focused on her. And I feel guilt being sad. It's hard to feel sad about Wicca's career end when my friends dog Tag actually died- I feel selfish, so haven't really allowed myself to be sad about Woo. I think it's so hard because she loved it so much, and she is so young. I've had to retire three dogs in my life already and none of them affected me like this.  It's going to take a bit to sort out emotionally. I did bring Wicca out to visit on Sunday afternoon. She liked that and stole some cheezies, mooched food from people, and basically walked around like she owned the place.

I'm going to start making myself go to class each week and train my dogs- I am worried if I don't I may lose the passion I had for agility entirely. One of the things that Terry talked about at the end of the weekend really stuck out to me. "We do agility because it's fun. Have fun with your dog." It's nothing earth shattering, and something I've probably even said a million times to students. But at this time in my life I need to remember that. I need to figure out how to bring back the fun, and the passion- for myself...