Sooner State Kennel Club

We spent this weekend in Oklahoma doing agility. Had I known there was obedience going on too I might have brought Zodiac but I guess he will just have to wait until next weekend.

Anyway it seems if you leave your dog crated at work all day, put her in the car for six hours, then straight into the hotel room for the night and turn her loose on the agility course first thing in the morning you will keep the judge and scribe very busy. Our standard run was total chaos and we racked up more letters on our scribe sheet than I have ever seen! Then she settled down for jumpers and we got MXJ leg #5. I was really proud of keeping her out of the off course tunnel.

Today we started in standard again where she blew off her teeter and dogwalk contacts, skipped some weave poles and also did a jaunt around the ring before doing said dogwalk. Then I did something I've never done. I called my dog back to me and carried her off the course. I don't think it made much of an impression on her since she was probably thinking she went out had fun and ran a course, albeit a short one. And I didn't really want it to be negative, I just didn't want her to continue to get away with that kind of ridiculous behavior. I guess we will be working a lot of contacts for awhile-I've let them slide for too long. Fortunately we also have a NADAC trial coming up so I can do some training in the ring if needed.

Then she turned in another beautiful jumpers run for leg #6. I almost sent her off course but was able to make the save and got some really nice distance on the course. I will post video when we get home.

Overall she had a great attitude this weekend. It may be coincidence but I've been feeding her a LOT of treats while we wait in line at the last few trials and I think it's helping her relax. I figure she will start to think that waiting in line and going to the start is really fun if she gets tons of treats just for hanging out. And that seems to be where she stresses the most. Time will tell as usual.