Bar Knocking, Weaves, and Oldness

SUMMARY: Boost training update, Tika aging update.

In class last night, on the first exercise, which I wasn't sure I could get through, Boost and I did great. Except that she knocked 2 bars.

Our instructor complimented Boost's run and said that she's ready to help me go back to working on bar knocking any time I'm ready. I said, OK.

We started on this a couple of times in the past and then decided that getting Boost to actually do obstacles was the bigger issue. This issue hasn't gone away, but she *does* look really nice in class a lot of the time these days. Did it take her turning 7 to start getting the idea of what's going on?

So the first step is that I need to stop her (in training or class) as soon as she ticks or knocks a bar. This is harder than it sounds--I'm so busy trying to figure out whether I can actually do the body work for a serpentine-to-rear-cross that the fact that she's ticked a bar is invisible to me. Or so busy trying my darnedest to get 3 obstacles ahead so I can do a deceleration for a threadle that the fact that she's knocked a bar is not high on my radar. But I think I was doing better by the end of class.

I also need to count--all the bars that she attempts, and all the bars that she ticks or knocks. That was hard just in class! If we stopped partway through an exercise, and restarted some other part of the way through, repeat 3 or 4 times, jeez, how many bars did we actually attempt?

I have not been doing tons of agility work at home.

About the only things I've been practicing with either dog are table-downs with Tika and weave entries with Boost, who appears to have decided recently that a weave entry, instead of being an entry with the first pole to her left shoulder, is one of:
* Enter between the first two poles, but starting from whtever direction she's coming.
* Enter between the second and third pole, starting from whatever direction she's coming.

It's insane. We've been working on weaves for almost 7 years and she's still not figured out the real rules. Or, at least, she gets it for a while, then somehow decides that that's not what it is after all.

Anyhoo--we've been practicing weave entries.

Homework from class this week is assorted moves-to-rear cross: threadle to rear, serpentine to rear, front to rear. After all these years of agility, I am still not coordinated!

Tika, meanwhile, I swear is still getting deafer. Yesterday in the quiet kitchen, she was lying facing away from me, and I had to say her name 3 times, louder each time, before she turned her head to look at me, but in a "did I hear something?" fashion rather than "my name is being called in the kitchen! yay!" which would be normal.

Her energy level does seem lower lately. She still runs after her ball full-tilt, but might chase it only 2 or 3 times before rushing into the shrubberies to continue excavation on her tunnel to China. She doesn't bother getting up off her bed often now when I'm doing something with Boost.

We're planning on hiking several miles this weekend, and none of us have done much hiking or walking lately, just too busy & distracted. Hope things go well for all of us on the trail.

Well, Duh.

SUMMARY: Why did I think this was a good idea? Again?

This weekend's trial is a 3-day trial, starting with the 5-class Team event this morning. I did not enter Team--I don't need to take yet another day off work, I certainly don't need any Team Qs with either dog, blah blah. So I *was* going to enter only Saturday and Sunday, and that's how I sent in my entry.

But as a bonus, they also offered Snooker Friday evening. I thought and thought about it, and, well, you know, Tika still needs 3 Snooker Qs to complete her Gold PDCH, and Boost, as always, needs SuperQs. So, I thought, well, really, Monterey's not that far, and I'm planning on commuting anyway, so what if I just drive down Friday evening for the Snooker?

So I signed up at the last possible minute.

Soooooo there I was at 4:00 this afternoon, still having had to miss a couple of hours of billable work, sitting in Friday traffic, thinking, "Monterey is an hour and a frigging half *without* traffic. What was I thinking? What what what what WHAT? Three and a half hours of round trip driving, with one Snooker run for each dog in the middle! WHY did I think this was a good idea?"

And then saying out loud to myself, "Well, SOMEONE better get at least a Q this evening or this whole trip will have been completely wasted." (Along with $23 of gasoline, plus the entry fees, plus the time off work...)

Back in the days when Jake desperately needed Gambles to complete his USDAA championship and Remington needed gambles for his NATCH championship and Standards for his USDAA MAD, I started doing this stupid thing-- this thing like driving to santa barbara for a one-day competition because they offered gamblers or standard. Driving to nevada because they offered gamblers or standard. Like that.

Like it would help.

Because I always ignored the fallacy of this idea, which is, the REASON we need those Qs is because we aren't very good at GETTING them, so if I drive 6 or 8 hours to get to an event, wearing myself out, and then stressing myself into "We'd better get a Q or all this effort would have been wasted," that it would make it MORE LIKELY that we'd get a Q?!?!

So, of course, in Boost's run, we got through a four-red opening with some bobbles but no major mishaps, and 2 to 3 in the opening, and then I called her to go over jump #4, pointed at it and yelled "hup" as I ran pall mall forward, and then because it was right in front of her and very obvious, I turned my head away to check for my next position--and, yes, you guessed it, she ran right past the blessed jump. Not even a Q. Crap!

And then 5 minutes later with Tika, after the fourth red in the opening, I sent her into a straight tunnel--and tripped and fell flat on the ground, tried to get up and stumbled back down. Tika, getting to the other end of the tunnel and not seeing me, discovered that she could see me THROUGH the tunnel so of course came right back through it for an off course and crap!!!!!

So I'm home. Someone please remind me next time I think that something like this is a good idea.

Gah. Well, to bed, then 90 minutes driving back down to monterey in the morning. At least now my canopy and all are set up (except the crates, which I forgot) so I don't have to do THAT tomorrow. Yay, can sleep in an extra 30 minutes.

Sheesh.