GKCDTC weekend

Don't have much going on at work so I thought I would blog for a minute. I am super, super proud of Deuce this weekend. We finished our Open standard title and got two legs in Open JWW. I really wrestled with moving him up but decided to go ahead and do it, why not. I know we will be in Excellent A for a little while, but dang it, we train on international courses every week so what is a silly excellent course? Here is my usual positives and negatives for the weekend rather than a blow by blow of how my runs went.

Positives: Once again, I feel like we are becoming more of a team. The "off course, I am in obstacle focus" seems to be fading more. I am also really getting better at handling lines and seeing lines but still need Lori sometimes to help me. Miller is so "point and go" and he will adjust according that this is a skill I seemed to have never mastered fully:) His weave entries were amazing this weekend and his speed through the weaves were nice. I screwed him up in excellent standard on his entry but that is okay. Wanted to try a rear over a panel and then send him out and I just sent him straight at the second pole. MY BAD. His teeter was spot on all weekend with him driving to the bottom and holding position for release. His turns were very nice, especially in jumpers when he was two or more jumps ahead of me. Getting better at when to say his name and when not to on the course but still needs more improvement. Collection when I needed it several times was great, he is starting to respect my collection cues. Getting better at reading deccleration, still needs some work though. Also getting better at reading my lateral distance away as come with. All of his courses that I qualified on were free of error so no Rs or Ws. We had a couple of wide turns that I would like to fix but no judge callable errors:) Am really enjoying a dog that doesn't talk back the whole course (sorry millman).

Negatives: Still loosing drive to contact position on the dog walk and a-frame. A-frame was so much better at USDAA trial with regards to him pounding into the up side and then creeping down the down side but seems to have gotten bad again. I tried to be conscious of staying behind him to drive him into position but I am getting so fast thanks to all the running I am doing that I am having a hard time slowing myself down. Will work on this more, really wishing I had a dog walk at home. Still having some oh shit moments and I don't like reactive handling. That will get better as I get better at reading lines and setting him up for success via my handling. Need to tighten his front crosses. He still sometimes wants to go wide and come back but that is a training issue we can fix. Harley did this when he was young too so been there, done that. Wish all of my dogs ran as tight as miller did:)

I did see stress on one run. He didn't respect a front cross cue and i just said his name loudly to get him to come in and not take an off course jump and we were disconnected the rest of the run. It was weird, the dog before him tore the chute so we had to stand on the line for a while. I released him from position and instead of staying with me and bouncing, he left to go sniff. Got him back, decided to leash him so he couldn't leave me again but he seemed a little stressed and didn't want to play. This was on the excellent standard course and I swear to you, I had 0 percent expectations so was not nervous at all. Finally got to run and then I had that correction and we were just not together at all. So weird, not sure what this is about but have seen it a couple of times now.


Overall very pleased with where we are at. We need one more leg for Open JWW title and I think that is doable soon. I actually look forward to excellent courses because I can have his head more, not as much open space. We have two shows in May and hopefully better weather so we can get more training in. It has been raining alot so training outside hasn't been an option. I hear that gas may go up to 5 or 6 bucks a gallon this summer. With that, i guess I will have to take on a third job to support my habit or maybe start selling organs and blood to pay for my addiction? I would so like to go back to doing three day trials when deuce is up in excellent in both levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUzCjzHKXA8

Here is the link to the video. Youtube hasn't stripped it of it's music yet so go watch it!!!! Sorry about the curse words in the song. I don't have a clean version of it.