I was exciting to have class today. I physically felt better than I have in almost a year. My head also seemed to be a lot clearly without the stress of pain. I had high hopes of being a better partner for my pup. I brought the GoPro but never used it so no video. I need to do a better job with that. I did remember a toy and water which was an improvement over Week 1.
MeiLi was very excited when we got there and eager to go inside. She had no issues going past the tack room and heading to the arena. She was calm going in and seemed focused on me. We took up our spot and did a little tugging while everyone got there. Then I put her in a crate to walk the course. She did not do so well with that and was barking while we walked. I think it put her mentally over the top. I need to be sure to at least have a cover for her crate. I want her to get used to it so she can crate inside at trials. But by the time we finished walking she was pretty unfocused. I thought I got her back and focused again before we tried our first run.
I loved the courses that were set up. A nice test of skills without being overwhelming for our dogs. Maybe I can work on parts of these in the coming weeks in the yard. There will not be much time this week as I leave for Texas on Thursday.
We were the last team to go as the other dogs are using gates on the weaves and MeiLi has never seen that. I was pretty confident that she would do well once she saw she was going to get to do her weaves. That was not to be as she struggled with setting up near the tall ring fencing near the hallway. She reacted to someone going out the hallway. She could not focus on her job and never managed to do the weaves. I became frustrated and let my handling skills go down and made the discission to end our turn. Betsi offered to let us come back in after the next dog, but I decided it was best for both MeiLi and I to just hang out for a bit.
Our next turn I decided to try the same course and to warm up with some weaves. MeiLi was still distracted but did manage to do the weaves. We tried the course again and she was distracted but we continue to the course. She did finish the weaves once I got her in them and did a nice wrap from the tunnel to the dog walk. Then proceeded to fall off the dog walk. We re-did the tunnel wrap, and she did a nice job. I tried a front course between 6-7 and MeiLi skipped the # 7 jump. It took a couple tries to get her over that then she went wide and Ass Crossed me into the tunnel. At that point I decided it was time to stop. It is so frustrating to have a dog that has the skills to run and simple lacks self-control and focus to succeed.
We hung out working on our focus the rest of the class. Everyone else took a third turn. I did not want to press my luck and take away the positives outside the ring as win. She was able to stay focused on me even with other dogs barking. It was nice to be able to just sit there with her. By the time I got home I was hurting some but much better than I have been since last March. Looking forward to next week.
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