Yet another agility trial

[areese]

We were competing at a USDAA trial today.....we didn't do so well :(
I only did this trial cuz it's put on by the club where I train....USDAA isn't a great venue for a non-traditional agility dog...the times are short and courses long...
I didn't expect to qualify but of course when I get there I WANT to so bad so I'm really disappointed. Laika didn't run as fast as I know she can...she didn't do BADLY...she didn't go sniff around (it was an outdoor trial) or bark at anyone or anything...made no mistakes...she RAN the whole time but not fast enough. We missed the last run by only .69 SECONDS. The others by 3 or 4 seconds. I guess I'm just let down cuz she did SO WELL and ran so fast at the other trial I was thinking she'd keep doing that....I don't know what to do to inspire her to run faster and of course I don't know why she decided to run so fast the other weekend...if she would have repeated that we would have qualified all of them I am sure.
Owell...she got a lot of belly rubs....She was absolutely enamored of Carl, a young man (prob. 12 or so) who runs a pug. Everytime she saw him she'd cry and pull to go see him and she'd immediately collapse and roll over and jsut lay there with her eyes half shut :)

[Alex's Mom]

Laika, you little hussy!!! :rotfl: I wouldn't let it get you down, Amy...it's like when I showed horses... even if we didn't place, or if the judge had little good to say, as long as my boy did well in the context of our training overall, I was happy. After all, you have the big picture to put her run in context, and as you say, it wasn't an event that was designed for little legs!! Just one show in many more to come! And hey!!! She found true love, so she was happy! :)

[areese]

Thanks...I hate being disappointed when I know I shouldn't be, esp. when she didn't really do badly...and neither did I. I just don't know how to motivate her to go faster...nothing seems to work if she's not in the mood. Although she wasn't SLOW and not wantting to do it...just not as fast as I know she can be.
She DID get the gamble...there's a thing called a Gamblers run where you run for 30 seconds and gather points (different obstacles are worth points) and then when the buzzer sounds you have to do a sequence of obstacles (usually 4) without the handler crossing a line. The gamble we had was a jump at the line to the a-frame, then at LEAST 15 ft out from the line was a tunnel, then another jump . very difficult to send most dogs away from you when you can run that way. Laika got the gamble!!!! The time whistle blew when she was about 2 strides from the last jump.... Really an awesome run and many many many dogs, bigger and faster dogs could not get the gamble.
So that was really good although it's so hard to be SO close and not get the qualifying run.