Fun Match Oct. 16 and Trial Oct. 24

Whew. I'm so behind on writing about our latest events. Let's get started.

Fun Match, Oct. 16

I ran Mika in two Masters Gamblers runs and Wall-e in two Starters Standard runs. Wall-e's runs were first. I let him do all of the obstacles except for the weaves, dog walk, and A-frame (although he did sneak onto an off-course AF twice!). Once, he forgot to stop in 2on2off on the teeter. He realized that right after he jumped off and immediately backed up to try to get into position! Good thing that the teeter was already high enough that it didn't hit him.

The Masters gamble was too hard for Mika and me, so I broke it up into smaller pieces and then gradually increased the distance and amount of obstacles. We didn't get to the full distance, but she did send out really nicely to the correct end of the second tunnel, which was the hardest part of the gamble for us. She also had some good weaves during the opening.

Trial, Oct. 24

This was our last trial of the year. I just ran Mika because Wall-e isn't ready to run at this venue yet. We ran in two Masters Gamblers runs and one Masters Jumpers. In the middle of our first Gamblers run, Mika thought we were done because she went over the jump closest to one of the entry/exit gatesMika has been trialing long enough to know that when we're running towards a gate, it's time to get her jackpot reward. Unfortunately for her, what she thought was the exit gate was actually the entry gate, and there was a Keeshond waiting to run. She reacted to it, but came back to me when I called her with "Gimme a check!" (our reactivity cue that means to focus on me when a dog is around). In the gamble, we took the wrong obstacle in the discrimination, so no Q. This run was still a blast, though, because Mika was speedy and barky!

Our second run was another Gamblers. In the opening, I actually called Mika out of the weaves by accident, causing her to pop out; I meant to call her after the poles, but I anticipated and called her while she was still weaving. Silly handler. The DW entry in the gamble was too sharp for Mika, so we did the gamble a bit differently, as you'll see in the video. (Angled DW entries will definitely be a training project for next year.)

Our last run of the year was the Jumpers run. The course wasn't easy and was a bit twisty at times, but we ran it clean and Q'd.

This video is from all of the trials and fun matches we've run in this fall:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9BDQvOKQXE