Crossing Thresholds - Comparison

I've been working on Psyche's trial issues, and yesterday that involved taking her to the field with 3 other people, setting up a course and doing the course like it's a trial. We tug up to the entrance to the field, drop the toy, heel position in, sit stay, release, course, finish, jump into my arms then run out to her tug.

This is yesterday's example:

Now, most people would look at this and think wow, she's so stressed, but I feel the need to point out the good things, and in doing so I had a "holy crap, my dog really has come a long way" moment. In a trial, I wouldn't expect Psyche to a) hold her dog walk contact b) get on the table and lay down; she'd get up but wouldn't lay down c) do 6 weaves, let alone 12 d) hold her a-frame contact or e) come to me at the end, let alone look at me, anticipating the "get up" command.

Please note that she did all of those things in that video.

Food for thought, here. Here's a video from a trial around this time last year:

And that was a jumpers run, at a trial she got her first Q at.

So something has to be going right. My dog is still stressing, yes, but she's improving in leaps and bounds. I guess my thing now is that it's hard to realize that she's making such improvement when I don't look back, and of course, I don't remember those "bad" runs from before.

We're working on it, but honestly, this is a general path for me to head in with her. We'll keep working on it, and at least now I can stimulate the stress so I can work on it. I feel like crap for purposely stressing my dog out, but at the same time, I've been doing it at trials for more than a year now.