Sunday, February 19, 2012

Fun Match Fun

Yesterday morning Mom and I packed up the HHR with 4 crates (two of which were Psyche and Simi sized) and headed out to Shediac for a fun match. Mom took her two girls and I took Psyche to work and Simi to just visit.

Simi was really good the whole drive there. She still tends to whine a little bit while driving but she was really good yesterday. No sound from her at all. When we stopped for pee breaks she completly forgot all of her loose lead training and nearly knocked me over, but meh. She was tugging and racing me to the tug in the hall outside the agility ring and could hear the dogs doing it, but she was still below threshold, so all was good. Then I took her in to watch Erin and Mach run their jumpers run and ... ha, yeah. So turns out my puppy really likes to watch dogs do agility. She was screaming and flailing... I had to pick her up and take her out and back below threshold, where she was happy to tug, so we worked on slowly getting closer and closer. Heck, I'd much rather deal with this "issue" while she's this small and not full grown. She was also pretty freaked out by a kid in a snow suit, but the lady who was organizing it spoke to the little girl (she knew her, I didn't) and asked her to come over and give her a treat. It took Simi some time to get comfortable enough to take the treat, but after she realized it was just a kid in a scary suit she was happy go lucky again.

Now as for Psycherdoo! She did really well! I mean, sure, she could have done better, but I am SO pleased with her! She was running with me, and while there was some minor stressing, she was really good. Nailed her contacts most of the time (there were I think 2 times she didn't hold it) and got her weaves and ROCKED them every time. Missed an entry once but when I brought her back she rammed through them, no questions asked.

She was really happy when she wasn't stressed and that was nice. I tried something new with her, which was letting her actually watch and fixtate on the smaller dogs running before her. She loses her brain when she watches small dogs, but I figured hey, I'll try it and see if maybe then she'll get more into agility itself after. I didn't notice a HUGE difference, however, the second time I let her do that, the lady with the one small dog she really loved stayed in the barn and was within Psyche's view/reach and Psyche played with me and didn't run off to the little dog, even at the end of the run. She was looking back at me waiting for her reward.

I didn't try to run without her toy this time. I wanted it all to be fun. And I may not even try to take her toy from her at the next one (we have another fun match on the 24th and then a puppy seminar for Simi on the 25th) but maybe at the one in April.

As for mom's two -- they did REALLY well. Rhyme was amazing. So proud of her for not having had any agility work for like 6 months.

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