CKC Trial July 24, '10

Mika didn't run. As we were at the car getting ready for her first run, she saw a black Standard Poodle about 20-30 feet away, ran over, and snapped at him. Augh. We went over to the ring. I did our usual mental warm-up and she seemed focused again. So I went in the ring, still distracted from her reaction, but thinking that it was over with and we would do this run. As I began to lead out, Mika saw a Tibetan Terrier walking past the ring behind her and immediately ran over to the side of the ring, trying to find a way out. I called her and she started to come back to me, but just before I could grab her, she spotted the dog again and ran through the entrance of the ring. She raced over to the dog and started a scuffle, but to my relief, the owner pulled her dog away. I called Mika and this time she came all the way to me. We were excused from the run (but I would have excused ourselves anyway).

I'm lucky that I know the owners of the poodle and the Tibetan, and they were very forgiving. I wouldn't have blamed them if they were upset, but they didn't act upset in the least. I pulled Mika from her remaining two runs, both for her safety and for the safety of other dogs.

Things to change...well, Mika will be wearing a Gentle Leader to the ring from now on. It definitely helps keep her calm. (When she pulls on her regular agility leash, it makes her more excited and potentially reactive.) I'll be taking her for individual walks to work more on her reactivity to other dogs, like I did when we were getting ready for SuperDogs last year.

It's amazing; Mika is so much more reactive with big black dogs. She always has been. My guess is that it's because she was lunged at by a black lab mix in a pet store when she was 10 weeks old. She ran the other way, screaming and terrified. At the trial, the poodle was a big black dog. With the tibetan, she must have still been in that reactive state of mind. She's seen that dog before and hasn't minded him.

Later that day, I walked Mika around the trial a couple of times to play our reactivity games. In our second session, we were setting under the shade tent in front of the same ring she had run out of that morning. There were about five other dogs around her, some only a couple feet away, and she was lying calmly in her down-stay, staring at me. She didn't even offer a glance at one of the dogs, so I knew that she was feeling super-comfortable in that situation. Then, she saw a big black Whippet walking over, about 50 feet away. She stood up, completely tense, stared intensely at the Whippet, growling. I picked her up (I had to, or else she would have gone nuts) and brought her as far away as I could.

Hah, she's totally fine with 5 strange dogs crowded around her, but when she sees a big black dog 50 feet away, she loses it! What a dog! :)

Okay, onto Wall-e's runs. It was his very first CKC trial and he got his first Novice Jumpers with Weaves Q. The run was 19.71 seconds!! Our second run, another JWW, was fast too, but we missed some jumps. At the end of the run, he LEAPED into the air so high that I could have caught him. He knows how to have fun!