Ugh, having the plague sure is demotivating. I place the blame on coworkers and also Hortonville’s active horse barn trial location.
Speaking of- back from Hooville. Interesting weekend. Highs:
*Team Qualifier for 2011 out of the way. First place with a baby dog team, too!
*12/15 overall Q rate.
*Finished her Standard Championship, Snooker Bronze and Gamble Bronze titles.
*Jumped very well on dirt.
*No misses on the A frame… at least, none were called.
*No off-courses on some exceedingly tricky designs (seriously an achievement).
Things I probably have no right to complain about given the above but will cuz I want to!!!
*Frankly, not the best times. No placements above forth
*Dog walk problems!!!
*No Grand Prix Q! Very disappointed as this was my secret goal.
Not sure what was up with her times this weekend. No video opportunity so I have to guess. I think she ran very well, all things considered with those courses. They were very trappy and jerky. When you could open up into speed *BAM* speed trap into an off-course option! The Dog had a great attitude even with frequent call-offs and kept it GOing through each and every course. My guess is that in the effort to not cut her speed by micro-managing her stride and keeping her close, she had many a trip to China. So that tells me we still need work on moving into me with speed, not just moving away with it. Homework assignment one for the week. Also I think we lost a lot of time re-directing from the off-course options-which were many! She tended to “shop” each option and look at me for a yes/no (Dog says They all looked good to me!!). So homework assignment two for me will be to get more active in these situations. I can stand and call or I can go and show.
And REALLY not sure what was up with her dogwalk! She was very slow (compared to last weekend and many practices) over the whole thing, even with a huge fast run onto it. She was going 2o2o by the last day, which she hates, so that tells me something was really up in her head making her think too much. I thought at first that the rubberized contact had something to do with it, but it seems more likely that the types of courses and the layout of the dogwalk on course were just bad enough to make her second-guess her running performance. It was pointed out to me that we were running into the wall a lot and often the dogwalk seemed to head into nothing or have a sharp turn to the side. Thinking about it, I have been targeting to a jump or tunnel, so there was nothing to drive to in many cases. Homework assignment three!
Ugh ugh less than two weeks until the Nationals. I’m trying to think of some realistic goals for her so that we can both have fun. List time!
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