Naughty and Nervous

I don't know where to start....;o)

It actually wasn't that bad and both of the dogs had some good moments, but they were overshadowed by nervousness and naughty-ness.

First the Naughty dog. She was very wild on her first run Saturday. She wouldn't hold a start line and just did a whole lot of doing her own thing. She barked and spun, wouldn't take equipment that I asked and flicked away...we didn't get the gamble, which is probably for the best as we didn't have enough points in the opening. Her standard was no better, except her startline was better and I made her stick her dogwalk contact. She knocked a bar (or four)..jumpers was just bad. Some bars, some launching and just general naughtiness. Sunday was no better- except for the start lines. I think she heard me saying that if she broke I'd take her off course. ;) Steeplechase was a disaster, mostly due to the surface and weavepoles. The surface is very deep sawdust/dirt and Wicca really has to struggle through in some spots. The weavepoles had huge divots and Wicca actually had to jump the bases. I had to stop her and take the sawdust out of her ears..I pulled her from Snooker at the end of the day. After the crazy, naughty Wicca the rest of the weekend I figured it wouldn't be worth my stress. I initially wondered if she was being so wild because she felt good- but during her after run/cool down massage she was very twitchy and had spasms in her back leg...

Now on to the nervous one. Sarah and I talked a lot about him on the way home. I wondered if it was a physical issue, but he doesn't show any signs of being lame. We both think it is a confidence issue related to the ring. Training and warming up outside the ring he is fine- happy, tail wagging, and even barking at me in excitement. And then he gets in the ring and disconnects. He actually avoided the A-Frame a few times this weekend, and only weaved succesfully once. There were some good moments for him, and times that he would try very hard to make me happy- he did some beautiful rear crosses, and read my decel over jumps- so I am happy with the prgoress on those things. But its the rest of the stuff that's falling apart now. I don't really get it- his contacts were SO good. His weaves were getting better and better. But he gets nervous and that's how he deals with it- some dogs run away, some dogs sniff, and Boone just avoids.

So it was an odd weekend, one that I didn't enjoy all that much. The courses were fun (or would have been if my dogs were being good.) I got to run Gyp and Kaleb which was fun. Sarah managed to run the a few times over the weekend but wisely decided not to run them Sunday afternoon. Her knee held up pretty well all things considered.

It is hard not to feel dissapointed or at least annoyed after a weekend like this. I know that they are both capable of so much more. I was in the right mindset going into this weekend and was actually in a good mood for the majority of the weekend. :) Such is life I guess!

My plan for Boone is to add stress to training- there will be no shortage of that in a few weeks when we move outside, but until then I will just work on making things more difficult for him.

And I am not sure with Wicca. I am worried about her still- she only ran three times on Saturday and once on Sunday and was very stiff and sore Sunday afternoon. She felt better after a massage but still. I am seriously considering not doing agility with her anymore. It is an upsetting thought- and not one that I've ever said out loud before. I have to do some serious soul searching about this. In the mean time I am going to go back and work on some ground work and founfation- startlines, decel, front cross, rear crosses and other handling can all be worked on with no equipment...we need to work better as a team and I think it will be good to go back to that.

I have no trials or anything planned for all of April. We will still train but it will be nice to have a month off of trialing. At the very least it will give me time to think.