I am too lazy to look for the dates on the trials and A Matches.
Zola's agility career started in August 2012, when she came of again
He first A-Match was picture perfect except for the lack of 2 on 2 offs on the contacts. She was really fast and very focussed.
Next up was one day in the Golden Retriever Trial at Soccer Blast in August. Again as far as I remember she was near perfect, again 2 on 2 offs a problem. She got a first place for her very first event, and a 2nd for the other.
9/8+9/9: LaCrosse: The wheels came off a bit, she had some nice runs, but she was getting distracted and the perfect weave entries that we had from the previous A-Match and Trial was not there for 3 of the 4 runs, plus she started getting distracted by things - aka, Kurt, she had to know where he was and the one run she spend a ton of time looking into the crowd for him, though I did get her back. Thought I was going to escape some of the issues I had with Cedar when I started her out.
9/15: BOTC Trial, not horrible but again not her speedy self as she is in class. No 2 on 2 off. Again a little distracted but I got her back.
Then this week I got some good advice, "If you bring home the blue ribbon, you better have been the only dog that qualified", aka, don't push the speed, focus on fun and getting things right.
So getting things right or improving on our little problems is what I did today at the fun match.
So day in Open Standard:
1. I remembered that she does 2 on 2 offs and didn't carry on running like I do with Cedar. She still blew that, I am not taking credit for that, she was not going too fast to stop, oh well.
2. Next up the weave entry which we had been missing at a couple of trials, whew perfect. She did skip some poles towards the end of the 12 set, but I think it was because I slowed down too much. I did not take her back to repeat them as I was just happy that she got the entry, and I wanted to keep her momentum going.
3. I wanted to not baby sit the table as I know she has a good stay. So I didn't stand right there, I got a good 7-8 feet away so I could get into position for a front cross after a jump. Perfect, she let me step away!
4. Next goal, 2 on 2 off on the dog walk, almost perfect, she stopped a little high up and I had to prompt her to come down to the 2 on 2 off, hey but at least we did it!
5. Another goal was for her not to get distracted on the course, she managed that on this one. Whew, so good!
6. Not knocking bars was a goal, she did knock one, but I am not going to worry about that too much, the ground was very uneven.
Today in Novice Jumpers:
1. I was wanting to not to rear crosses with her at trials for a bit as it didn't go so well the last few trials and though I know this was an a-match, I didn't want to do anything she thinks is demotivating. But alas, there was no way I was going to get away with not having bigger problems without doing rear crosses.
2. Lead-out was not so good, I started turning away from the second jump too soon and pulled her with me, had to go back and get her over, so a Refusal.
3. What with me having to go back, for the refused jump I could not get into position for a front cross, so the only cross I planned as a front was lost. BUT she did a perfect rear cross.
4. Then a few jumps, then another rear, there was no other way to do that one, perfect.
5. Then jump, weave, perfect entry into the weaves. But then I started moving towards the off course jump and realized my mistake and turned on time to stop that ...... but she got a good glance at the plastic bag which had blown against the fence, so had to check it out ...... grrr, distraction goal not met.
6. Got her back, jump, jump, rear again, again perfect, jump, jump done. 95 Q.
So I would say a successful day, weave entries perfect, rears perfect, 2 on 2 off's 50% perfect. Focus 85-90% perfect.
Come to the conclusion I am not going to push the speed with her until we are accurate, I know she has the speed, but speed does not matter in Novice and Open. Novice and Open are all about getting used to the trial environment.
