Nationals Trip Day 4

Okay so I started talking about day 4 but I didn't finish cause we hadn't done anything yet. Got set up and got to see everyone as most everyone else in our group drove two days so they drove straight to the trial site and set up. I didn't even walk the course as I didn't want to be tempted to run it. We were getting ready to watch everyone run when Joan told me I should at least work on my stay or do jump dog walk or something to get my monies worth. Sure enough, the course was jump, dog walk, jump, so I decided to just do that. Since I hadn't walked the course, I had no clue which way it went after that anyway. Ran back to the RV and got both doggies and headed over to the crating area. We had plenty of time because there were several heights before us.

I have to admit, I have never done an extensive warm up with Miller. Early on I figured out that the more that I messed with Miller, the more hyped up he got and the chances of him just running crazy increased. Currently or should I say pre-injury, I just walked him and trotted him and then just did attention exercises. We would go up about 4 or 6 dogs out and get ready to go in. Now, I feel like I need to do alot more warming up so we did lots of walking and running prior to our run. I also did some stretches but not too much because I have always been told not to do stretches until you are totally warmed up. I had to find that balance of warming up and not doing too much. He did seem confused as to why I was messing with him so much. I did a few jumps at 16 inches and he did stutter one but then was fine after that. Unfortunatley when I got him in there, he knocked the first bar and then was slow on the dog walk but as soon as I released him to the next jump, he was fine, barking and running like crazy. I pulled him after that, much to the judges confusion and ran to the exit. I really hope that Miller didn't think he was in trouble because he did a great dog walk contact. He did go back up the dog walk as I was telling the judge thank you and I had to pull him off but I think I did the right thing. He was very happy and seemed to stretch out nicely afterwards.