UDAC NADAC November 14-16 2014 Trial

Tesla, Alva and I had a lovely time at the local Valley Center, CA trial...  Alva ran in the Veterans on Parade, and had a great time entertaining everyone.  He didn't Q all weekend, but he had a blast playing agility with me again, and he didn't injure himself, and that is what is most important.  He even took a far tunnel entrance (he was supposed to take the closer one) in Chances, and that made me so happy...  look at my distance-challenged deaf dog go 40 feet away to a far tunnel entrance!!!  Whoo hoo!

It was Tesla's first foray into half Novice, half Intro level courses, so it was a good test as to whether she was ready to move up completely into Novice.  I think she is ready, but we do still need loads of work on weaves, entry and speed.  I'm not worried, though... she has the basics down, just needs to see them more in a trial setting.  This was only her third trial seeing weaves, so she's still figuring out how to slow down (WHAT???  Slow down????) to enter them properly without shutting down completely (it's all or nothing with her).  Here is her first NOVICE Weavers run, where she has to do the weaves 3 times on a course.  And this one was very tricky, as there were loads of tunnels to keep her running fast.  She only had problems with the first one, and then she kinda shut down on the last one because she just didn't know how to slow down yet...  and I think she was telling me "AGAIN???  ugh..."  but she did them!

And here is her Novice Jumpers run.  It is her first Novice Jumpers Q, and it was a very nice run at that.  She had problems for many trials with jumps, mainly because she preferred running straight and fast and not slow down to jump, so she ran past them.  The last 3-4 trials, though, she has learned to recognize them as NOT OPTIONAL, and has begun to look for them as obstacles.  This one involved many casual turns, so she couldn't speed up like she'd like, but still, she kept her speed and her connection with me.  Very good girl!

And, just to be fair, I need to present our official Train Wreck of the weekend...  Novice Tunnelers on Sunday!  I forgot where we were going, so I completely messed this up, but Tes had no idea I messed up, so I kept going and kept it fun for her.  She even had a switch into the second to last tunnel, and that is hard for us to execute!  Very nice ending to a train wreck... 

I had a beginner handler come to me after the run and say "I felt better after watching you have fun with your dog even though you messed up!  It made me feel better about my messed up runs!"  Yup, and really, the whole point of us being out there is to have fun with our dogs.  Period.  Make cookies out of squishy dough, and have a good time :-) 

-Dayle