Worst...Weekend...Ever

It's been a while since I posted. September is a really busy month and I had to take time off from agility.

This weekend I entered Shelby in the Bo Gee CPE trail in Deerfield NH. On Sat we were entered in Jumpers, Snooker, Jackpot, and 2 rounds of Standard.

The temperature when I arrived Saturday morning was 31! Brrr. I had my Winter hat, gloves and scarf on for the first walk.

Jumpers started out ok. Shelby went wide at a turn and I had to call her back. We got going again and were going pretty fast and she got ahead of me and ran around a jump. When I called her back she backjumped it. So we had one off course, but we got a Q and 4th place.

I was excited for Snooker. It was an interesting course. We got 1 red, the tunnel, second red and the Shelby took a pee on the course. That was a first for me.

Jackpot was next. Shelby wasn't really feeling it. I had to cheerlead her through the course. I just tried to keep in front hoping it would motivate her to keep up. It worked pretty well. When it came to the gamble it was jump, tunnel, jump, table. She did the jump but blew past the tunnel. I called her back and she got it and got the table, but we were over maximum time by 5 seconds. That really sucked because it was a short opening of only 30 seconds, rather than the possible 35. So we could have Q'd if we had just a little more time. We did get 3rd place.

Then came Standard Round 1. Again Shelby was slow and I was the head cheerleader. I really had to work hard to get her around the course. The A frame was super slow, the teeter was super slow. Our time was almost 90 seconds, so no Q. Round 2 was the same thing. We were a little quicker with a course time of 78 seconds, but still too slow so no Q.

I was disappointed with the day overall, but Shelby worked with me and paid attention. She just wasn't very motivated.

On Sunday we were entered in Standard, Jackpot, Fullhouse and Snooker. Our Standard run was crazy. Shelby missed contacts, ran around jumps, etc. I knew she wouldn't like the opening because it was a jump to the dogwalk, which was slatless. She tends not to like that I think because it looks like a teeter when you approach head on. Yesterday she hesitated, but I encouraged her and she continued. On Sunday she started, then bailed. We kept going and I had her for a while over a few jumps and a tunnel. Then we tried the weaves 3 times and she just wasn't even really trying, so we went on. At the end she ran around the last jump and left the ring. I called her back and she backjumped it and before I could get her over the right way the whislte blew, so we had an NT.

Next was Jackpot. I had a nice course planned with 2 jumps to the A frame, which Shelby usually likes. She took the 2 jumps and then went around the A frame to see the judge, which she never does. Then I tried to get her back and she went around 2 more jumps and then into the tunnel. But then she went off again, so I called her over and picked her up and we left the ring. I was really disappointed because Shelby was mentally checked out. I felt like I was putting in 90% of the effort and she was only doing 10%.

After that I decided that since Shelby wasn't feeling like doing agility, we were going to go home. I knew it would be a lot more fun for me! I was really frustrated to the point of tears. It's so frustrating when you know you are capable of so much more than what came out on the field. And it's not because of stress or nerves, it's simply a lack of desire. I know some people will say that I just have to find a better way to motivate her, but I'm doing all I can and I don't see what else I can do. So if Shelby needs more to compete then I'm obviously not the handler for her. We entered the All Dogs trial in Nov. Not sure if we got in. If we did, I'll be interested to see how she performs there. I really hope this was just an off day.