Wow! Just found this while browsing...Went to the Tucson Cluster and entered Open A each day for Thursday Friday & Saturday. There was no "match time" where you can go practice in the ring which would have helped a lot I'm thinking, but she just was not comfortable on Thursday, head in the clouds, looking around, over the jump to retrieve but around the jump to return, did a recall instead of jumping the broad jump (all 3 days), too much to list... Short story, 3 days - 3 NQ's, but it was better each day with Saturday being very good form, but still not going over the jump on the way back and still not going over the broad jump at all.
Did a Fast Cat on Friday to let her run off her stress - 24.5 mph - still holding her own on speed. She's been faster, but the lane was facing into the wind which was blowing fiercely all.day.long and even blew over some peoples shade tents near the obedience ring. That was pretty exciting.Funny because no harm done, but seriously the wind was bad!
All the obedience & rally was done OUTSIDE. I'm extremely glad I taught my dog that sniffing/crittering/pee is off limits during any kind of training - more dogs got points off or excused for peeing than I've ever seen.
Here's Saturdays Open A run, you can see that she's distracted at several points during heeling, air scenting & clearly thinking about something in the far distance but way better than Thursday & Friday, so I felt good leaving on improved performance. If $ was no object I would have entered for Sun & Mon as well, but we all have our limits. I think as she was getting use to the place and action around she was getting better. (over 1000 dogs there for all events) They had music blaring from the dock diving, the fast cat was running in the next field (out of sight, but you could hear the dogs barking) and also had another area for Fetch going on. The conformation was all indoors in two huge buildings. Quite the action for my country girl, it's beyond me how to train for that kind of distractions!
very impressive,
CD would be something to aspire to...!
@Ravenbird and@Two Dobes the 2024 Nationals
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