Crappy weekend at the Sunflower AKC trial

I had to sit down and get my thoughts out once again after a very disappointing, sucky weekend. It was eye opening and at the very best, motivating which is what I needed!

We started out the weekend by having snow that was not suppose to accumulate. Imagine my surprise when I woke up and saw the roads and ground covered. Now I am the biggest winter driver wimp you have ever met, so I was fairly scared even at this little dusting that we got. I decided to be brave, hoping that the main roads would be good and with the exception of Lawrence roads, they were all good. I drove about 10 mph in lawrence and just let everyone go around me!

We started off by running jumpers on Friday, with a wonderful jumpers course set up by Lavonda Herring who had great courses all weekend if I say so myself. Miller got a Q and left all his bars up and got his weaves so I was very happy. Then came standard and the dreaded dog walk. Miller has always had a very marginal dog walk and I have not been 100% clear on his criteria. We train in class that he is to stop with 2 feet on and 2 off and he gets a correction if he does this wrong, but he is usually stellar in class with contacts. He does a running aframe which has been natural to him, but stops on his teeter. Well in a trial, unfortuately, the quest for my MACH has really caused me to let him get away with some really close dog walks that do not even come close to what I get in class. I see that almighty Q and I forget things like criteria! Well, the last two shows, his dog walk has gotten worse and worse and haven't been pulling him just in case I got the double Q, which is really bad. It is worse when we run standard after jumpers because I will go ahead and hope that he got it. So the dog walk was the second to last obstacle and I had a double Q going, which makes it even harder and my plan was to run it like I run in class, which is to not baby it at all. The next obstacle was the last obstacle and it was a jump so I had planned to run to that jump, release him and then end, but unfortunately for me, he didn't hold his contact and got over the jump before I could get a correction in. I quickly leashed him up and put him in his crate and ignored him which usually hurts his feelings pretty bad. I was so mad at myself for not getting him corrected sooner and was hoping that the correction I got in was enough. I was also very conflicted becuase he had really run a perfect course and had gotten through all the hard stuff very nicely and tightly but just had one mistake. He was so happy with himself and I felt so bad for ignoring him but I don't know what else to do. I was so upset all night, from being angry at him, to angry at myself, to all out depressed. I feel like since miller is 10, we don't have much more competitive time and i hear his competition clock ticking very loudly which makes these decisons so much harder.

Day 2 dawned with us running standard first which is better for me when it comes to decision time. The dog walk was in the middle of the course this time so at least i wouldn't have run too much of the course before I had to pull him or make a decison. Well, this time, he came down in the contact zone but didn't make any attempt to stop. I stopped him immediately and pulled him. I got a good correction in and felt that the sunday we would be better. Of course we Q'd in jumpers so I basically had forgone a QQ to work on his dog walk. My trainer commented that i had really grown some balls. I felt good about my decision but at the same time, I still hear that time clock ticking.

Day 3 dawned again with standard first so again, easy decision. As he was transversing the dog walk, I could tell he had no intentions of stopping. I told him bottom and turned into him to make sure he heard me and I think what happened was he barked at me, talking back to me (he barks the whole course) and he slid off the contact. I think he was making an attempt at stopping but I felt like he had missed the contact and there was no point in going in. He has to learn that he can't back talk and he has to do what is expected of him. So i basically gave up 3 Qs to work on his dog walk. Talk about expensive practice!!!!! We didn't Q in jumpers as I think I was just not into running after three days of not even finishing a standard course. He missed the last weave pole, probably because I was getting ready to turn and he saw my footwork change so I blame myself. I had no reason to be turning so soon, but again I wasn't running with 100% of my mind. The run ended up being pretty good, I did say turn in front of a jump and he did a great turn, in front of it and not after he had jumped it, but again my fault. I ended the run on a good note with lots of cookies since both mistakes were my fault.

Now on to how I feel now and my observations for the weekend. On one hand, I am proud of myself for forgoing the Q. On the other hand I feel like I don't have much time left to get his MACH due to his age and I know i gave up at least 2 QQS this weekend. I do feel like it was a good idea since we have AKC nationals coming up and it is in North Carolina this year. I really don't want to drive all that way and have him have perfect runs except the dog walk. I know it is a good idea to use every run as training, especially since nationals is coming up in three months but that is such a hard mindset to keep. I know if jumpers is first and I have a Q already, it is going to make this decision to pull him so much harder. i was lucky this weekend that standard was first two days out of three. I hope I can keep this frame of mind because I have a tendancy to get all fired up and then loose it at the next show. Of course it doesn't help that I have a USDAA show next weekend and we only have two of those in our area so titles and Qs for nationals are very precious. I might have the tendency to let him get away with bad dog walks if I think I have the Q.