Be Good to Us 2011

We haven't had class for two weeks, so I took the dogs up to the practice field Thursday to make sure we still had our stuff. Maggie nailed everything, including the teeter. Very optimistic!

New Year's eve, I drove up to the show to get a massage for Shane. We watched a bit, visited a bit, and got our massage. Shane was a physical mess as always. Back jacked up. Toes jacked up. Shoulders jacked up. Glad I went. We didn't make it to midnight, but we all managed to get through the local firecracker extravaganza without any drama.

Up bright and early New Year's day. Jumpers was first and Maggie had her best time ever even though we had to come around a missed jump. 1st and Q for the New Year! She also did the same for Snooker and got a 3rd and Q for Gamblers. In Std, she jumped off the teeter so off went back to the crate. I sure hopes that works. Many things to work on this year. I lose her attention on rear crosses. She's still afraid of big dogs and little kids. She still sniffs on the dog walk.

Shane did pretty well, although we didn't Q all day. I wish I could remember the jumpers run, but I do know he dropped some bars. In Snooker, we made it though the opening without any down bars, but he knocked a bar in the closing. I heard the judge, go "ah." We were doing so well until then. In Std, he knocked the very first bar but was clean the entire rest of the course. Got all his contacts. The table was set to 12 inches and he took a few laps around it until he got up the courage to try it. I wish he had never hurt himself so badly on that 16 inch table.

Now to the last run of the day. Adv Gamblers. There was a GSD at ringside, barking and lunging at the running dogs. Very scary. We asked the owner to move the dog, but he didn't move far. I was pretty pissed and kept looking at him. Will I ever learn? That is the exact same behavior that Shane exhibits. So sure enough, our run was a mess. Shane was absolutely nuts. I couldn't even get him for the Gamble. He ran off and did the Gamble backwards and then ran up the A-frame. I managed to catch him. I asked the judge if there were point for doing the Gamble backwards and he said we were fine, so I would still have been in play if I hadn't touched Shane, but I'm sure we were out of time.

It was a pretty fantastic day. I see great progress and others have commented on it as well. I'm very excited about the coming year.