End of December we did UKI and are now going to be in Senior. All the runs were great with very tiny things to fix. 1) I walked a wrong class – luckily I noticed before we ran. 2) I didn’t feel confident enough to get the higher-point gamble (distance challenge). 3) His contacts weren’t as sticky as they should be. We’ll get to do another UKI in a few weeks, I can’t wait!
Early January we did USDAA. We haven’t done it for three years! No Q’s that day, again handler errors. I missed the first walk through. We did a back jump during snooker and while we didn’t get whistled off, we also didn’t have enough points. I learned a few things about snooker and regretted not running for more points. We finished in almost the exact amount of time I expected! In our standard run we had one off course with an aframe/tunnel discrimination. He missed a few of those in a recent lesson so we’ll be doing a lot more training there. It used to be a strong point.
Last weekend we did AKC obedience. Similar challenges to our trial in October (down stays are weak) – but I haven’t worked on it much and he was much better than last time. As usual, his on leash heeling wasn’t so great but the off leash was much better. I was especially happy with his long stays – he was really interested in a pointer a few dogs down. No Q’s but lots of great things and more training for the next one. Training focuses: 1) Down stays 2) On leash heeling 3) Figure 8 distractions. Something we don’t need to work on – his stand for exams and sit for exam were perfect! I was upset with myself for entering preferred open. Before December anyone could do it but now a CD or PCD are required so we didn’t get to run. I’m really excited for obedience but unless I drive far we’ll just have to wait a few months to go again.
Yesterday we did AKC agility. We finished our novice jumpers title and did our first open standard run! The ring was really tight and slippery. Most of jumpers I had a good plan for him without getting too fast. Standard wasn’t as pretty, some handling errors and some are just training holes (straight lines, tempting off course options, start line stay). It was a really weird day, the judge was new to AKC judging so a rep from AKC was present and that resulted in some extra time/talking/interesting things. I enjoyed watching how she helped him and listening to her comments about his course design, safety, and ring flow. I loved the courses and wish we had run them on better footing.