Shane and I have no Q's from this past weekend, but we had a few moments that filled my heart with joy. We have been struggling with many issues for quite some time, and we progressed on a few of them.
Out of all the shows we've been to, Shane has only 2 Standard legs, mainly because he will not sit or down on the table. I can tell that he's afraid because he looks all around, mainly at the judge, and looks terribly worried. At our last show, he gave me a sit for the female judge, but not the giant male judge. We worked hard in the backyard, and Shane received his dinner on the table in the down position all last week. By chance, there was a wood pallet near the ring at the show. We played Table there all Saturday morning. At one point, there was a man on either side of the pallet and one held the leash of a border collie, the one dog that drives Shane nuts. With those distractions, he stayed down. I was psyched. Into the ring, and Shane just stands there on the table staring at the judge. I got him into a sit, but he was a statue. On we go. No Q. The next day, we practiced on that pallet some more, and this time Shane went down in the ring. It took some time, but he did it. His butt came up a little and the judge had to restart her count. Give me a break lady! I heard the one word that I was waiting for. GO! I made such a fuss that he knocked the last bar on our way out. Who cares! Shane went down on the table! I'm sure the crowd thought I was nuts to be so happy about losing.
One of our other challenges has been Shane's reactivity at shows. The last time we were in San Marcos, a woman accused Shane of biting her and the owner of the border collie that Shane lunged at asked me if he was aggressive. That was not a good day. This weekend in San Marcos Shane had a few lapses, but at one point we walked into the building and got to our crate without any lure treats and without Shane reacting to anything. We also sat next to the practice jump while a border collie warmed up and Shane did not react. I never thought we would be able to just walk around the rings like other people and their dogs.
The downside to dealing with Shane's reactivity is that I've been treating him way too much to get to this point, and Shane is a bit overweight. I know people think I treat him too much, but I can't risk him lunging at anyone ever again. That accusation of biting really threw me. I know he didn't bite, but it still could have resulted in me being thrown out of the show.
Shane is on a diet now, but we haven't lost enough weight yet, so Shane's still knocking bars. We blew our Jumpers run, Snooker, and Advanced Pairs with knocked bars. I screwed up the second Snooker run before Shane could knock the bars on the double jump. I didn't enter Gamblers as Shane is now in Masters and I was just too chicken to try. I also chickened out of trying the Grand Prix. I wrote Scratch on the running order, but I should have written Chicken. How could I do the Grand Prix when we can't even get a Starters Standard leg. I have no business being in that ring.
I am now weighing whether we should be at the Championship level. I haven't entered the New Year's show yet as I want to see how Shane does next weekend in Kerrville. I may decide to enter him at the Performance level for a while. He seems better jumping at 12 inches. We'll see.
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