Here Comes USDAA Again

SUMMARY: Injuries, class, weekends.

I've been trying to take it easy with Boost for the last week to let whatever's going on in her right rear leg heal up a bit. We've been going for long walks and playing gentle fetch (where she doesn't run full speed and doesn't crash & slue around like crazy getting the toy) and a lot of tug'o'war. No practicing agility--no tunnels (which she loves) or jumps or anything.

She never looks sore except sometimes when she gets up from lying there for a while. I haven't noticed it in the last few days, so maybe it just needed a little rest.

Tonight in class is the first agility I've done with either dog since class last week. Our first couple of runs were disasters with both dogs. I wasn't getting in my cues, or boost was knocking bars, or I just can't think fast enough to do what I'm supposed to do when something changes on course (e.g., boost knocks a bar and all I'm thinking about is rewarding her for making a tight wrap around a jump upright, so she wraps and knocks the bar and gets a reward). I frustrate myself so often with my own mental limitations.

In one run, both dogs knocked the same bar when I put in a front cross (and Tika doesn't knock that many bars any more), and in another run, both dogs popped out of the weaves that were heading generally towards a large hedge (but really, 10 feet away!).

Ah, well. By the end of the evening I think all three of us were doing better.

Which is good, because we have a USDAA trial this weekend and another next weekend.

Both at Manzanita Park at Prunedale, both by clubs of which I'm a member. I'll be at the score table again.

I moaned and groaned and waffled mightily over what to enter either dog in after our last couple of trials, putting off the decision until the last possible moment, then just went ahead and entered both dogs in everything as usual and got the entries in the mail just barely in time to meet the closing dates.

Tika has seemed so healthy and happy and eager lately. Just that deafness thing.

I have no reason to believe that either dog will do any better in the coming competitions than we've done in previous ones. I'm trying to adjust my expectations and attitude accordingly.

I'm both looking forward to the weekends of agility and regretting the lost weekends that could've been full of things *other* than agility. As usual.

Guess if we all stay healthy and happy, it should be good.