Tesla's First Trial

Wow... my baby puppy papillon is growing up!  This past weekend, July 25-27, 2014, at Performance Dog Training's NADAC trial, Tesla competed in her first trial as a very baby-brained 18 month old.  We competed in the new Intro level, which is just right for where we are in training.  It gives her experience in a competition environment, but the courses are simple and short, just long enough for her attention span.  She was SOOOOO GOOD!  We only had one Q, but that was icing on the cake.  I really wanted good start line waits, and she was PERFECT!!!!  even in front of very enticing tunnels!  And, I wanted good contact behavior (uh, that needs more work!).  We didn't Q most times because she is still learning to seek out obstacles, and MOM (um, yeah, me) needs to learn to be faster so that I am in the proper position to path her properly through the obstacles.  I was worried she would have zoomies in every run, but she stayed relatively focused throughout, only having issues with the judge (once), and the jump setters (a few times).   She did have issues with Dan's dog walk that she thought was our trainer's teeter, which threw off all of her contact behaviors.  But that is a baby dog thing, and we'll work through those issues...

We even survived a big-time THUNDER and LIGHTNING storm on Sunday right overhead (and yes, it was very loud and scary, and not just by SoCal standards!).  The storm was so bad that people got hurt from a lightning strike north of us in Venice Beach.  Tesla was scared when a BIG crackling boomer went off near us (less than a mile away), and she shook the entire time the storm traveled over us, but was fine once it left the region and was farther away.  I'm grateful she is so resilient...  I'm also grateful Hutch wasn't there that day... he would have been a mess, and I probably would never be able to get him out of the house ever again.

Even after all that, she performed like a champ!  I was very, very happy with her!   For our first trial, we did very, very well...  Here is her Q run, the last run of the weekend, Tunnelers.  I was amazed I made the front cross (and if you listen hard enough, you can hear the judge think so as well :-D  lol).  She almost had a 5+ yards/second run, very, very fast!  Don't blink... it goes by quickly.  It isn't the greatest angle, but beggars can't be choosers...  I'm just grateful to have a record of it at all!  Thank you, Shira!

I also have her Jumpers run from earlier in the day as the rain started, just before the boomers began.  We missed a jump, but overall, she followed my signals, and even had a nice switch at the end:

She is going to try my handling abilities... she is so much faster than Alva, and very much her own girl!  When she gets more confidence (oh, lordy!), she is going to be faster still...  Mom, you better get your stuff together!!!!

I'm proud of her, nonetheless...  I hope you enjoyed watching my girl strut her stuff.  If I get more videos from the weekend, I will post them.

-Dayle