Mixed

Saturday's weather was at least marginally better and roads were clear so we headed on down to Arkansas   As a bonus I found out there actually is heat in the arena, we just never needed it until this year.  As another added bonus Pup Art Photography was there and I really needed her to get a picture of Lyric to go with all the other ones I have from her of the other dogs.  But since the only other place I have seen her is the Border Collie specialty that had presented a problem!

Anyway, the weekend ended up with mixed results.  Legend was more stressed this weekend than she has been at the last few trials.  But to be fair she has also been acting weird at home.  Intermittently she goes through phases where she objects to going outside with the other dogs and will run and hide at potty time.  I have to go find her and make her go out.  We are in the midst of one of these spells so maybe her trial thing in related.  At any rate it's just one more thing I will probably never be able to explain about this dog.  But, despite this she managed to finish off her novice preferred titles on Saturday.  And despite her stress she managed to do the teeter and a-frame as obstacles number 3 and 6.  I was really proud of her for doing this and was sort of hopeful we were making progress.  But apparently not.  The next day she did get a nice open JWW leg but refused both the dogwalk (obstacle 2) and teeter (obstacle 4) before doing them.  Since we had NQd I decided to try a big send and layer to get ready for next weekend's NADAC trial.  She nailed it.  I don't really get how a dog can have so much confidence and yet so much stress all in the same course.

Lyric continues to run with nice speed and drive.  But it took her three attempts to get weave poles correct on each course Saturday   But she did the teeter.  Sunday she did perfect weaves in both rings.  They were especially great in standard.  She was going so fast I thought she was for sure going to blow past them.  But darned if she didn't weave them like a champ.  But she bailed off the teeter.  So close to a QQ.  Sometimes I  just want to beat my head into the wall.  She does the teeter everywhere else.  She's never fallen.  I don't know what scared her and I don't know what continues to upset her about it.  I wish they didn't both have weird issues at the same time.  I can only deal with so many unexplainable sources of frustration at once!

So, it's been better, but it's been worse.  I should have practiced today, since it's nice and I have another trial this weekend, but I didn't really feel ready to get back on the proverbial horse yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  I'm not sure how much training helps anyway sometimes.

On a good note here is the photo of Lyric.  Ironically, it's a weave pole picture.  But isn't she cute! By the way, this is a photo of the photo so it may not look as nice as it really it.  She touches them up some to look like paintings/art.

And I took Finn with me Sunday.  He was really good.  He greeted all dogs and people pleasantly and sat quietly and watched the dogs in the ring with mild interest.