Saturday, July 18, 2009

Agility in the Heat

We had an agility Funmatch Saturday morning, and it was pretty fun. It was very hot, and humid- which is not a very alberta-type weather. We are not used to that. Heat yes, humidity no.

The funmatch was great though. I actually enjoyed myself, and had some good runs with the dogs. We set up a standard and a gamblers from the Saskatchewan Regionals. The courses were fun and straight forward. We modified things for the starters dogs and then ran the "Masters" dogs on the actual course.

Boone's first standard run was pretty awful. I was rushed and didn't warm him up or let him chill at the field. It was pretty much a disaster. The gamble run was awesome though! He got 31 points in his opening and got the main gamble. Woohoo Boonie! His contacts have improved a lot and I he is starting to understand his job no matter my position. His A-frame contact is probably his strongest- with the teeter being the weakest.

Wicca had a pretty good day. Her contacts were actually very good. She popped off the teeter once, but otherwise I made her hold them- and fed her when she was particularily good. :o) The standard was a good course for her- we had two bars, but otherwise it was good. Oh- and a missed weave entry. I was happy with my handling though- I was a bit late on a FC, but otherwise I did a good job. The gamble was fun, although she was a bit frantic. It was hard work to keep her focused and not flying off and doing her own thing. She had me pretty flustered. In the heat of the moment I had some bad handling. like, something i thought i was totally over...and it reared it's ugly head. stupid. I redid it at the end and with proper handling. I worked so hard to fix that bad habit and I was pretty shocked when I did it without thinking. Geesh.

The heat was pretty crappy though. I was super overheated, and I know that Wicca was aswell. I am going to make sure to pack her cooling coat to take to Nationals, and I am going to see if i can find a hat that I don't hate, and one of those cooling neck things for people. I know I've seen them at craft fairs and stuff like that.

Last year at Nationals the weather was pretty perfect- cool, and overcast for most of the weekend. This year it is supposed to be hot!!

1 comment:

onecollie said...

hey!...I have a neck thing if you want to borrow it!