Body Adjustment / Brain Adjustment

I will try to make this short, as I am very tired and really need to go to sleep. I got back this evening from an AAC agility trial in Calgary. The courses were very technical and challenging, but also very fun. Here is a summary of the weekend:

Body Adjustment:

Maggie was in 3 runs on Saturday. Her first 2 runs were a standard and a gamblers. She seemed to run OK in the Standard - she knocked a bar and wasn't super speedy, but was OK. Next was gamblers. The final gamble was very difficult. I thought maybe she could pull it off, but I didn't put enough pressure on her on the send away to the weaves and since it was a 17' send, she just didn't know what I wanted. She gave a nice effort and had an awesome opening with 33 points (which is very good for Maggie). Here is the tough final gamble: teeter - tunnel - turn away and send 17' to weaves - out to jump. Yikes!

Maggie's last class of the day was Masters Snooker. She refused the first jump and really hesitated on the second jump - that was a far as we got. She was limping on her back leg. Because of all the great agility people (one in particular this weekend), there is always someone around to help. Maggie had an appointment at the Chiropractic vet later that evening, thanks to Shannon. She really needed an adjustment as there were 2 spots near her shoulder that were out and her sacrum was really out (causing her to not be able to extend her left rear leg). After her adjustment she was walking fine again.

I ran Maggie in 2 runs today (the vet said it was fine) and, well, she was less than enthusiastic. She was really not herself at all today (even not on the course) so I am not sure if it has something to do with Saturday's problems or not.

Brain Adjustment:

Bosley was entered in all 7 runs this weekend. His first 2 runs were horrible. I mean, really, really horrible. The back of the arena has some very interesting smells (apparently) and Bosley would not even look at me or respond to me, all he wanted to do was sniff - I could not get his attention. He is never like this. After the first run I was a bit frustrated, but when the same thing happened on the second run (only worse as he kept running away from me) I was getting very frustrated. I had to grab him by the tail to catch him and hold him by the scruff to keep him from taking off again (the judge didn't really like that) and someone had to bring me the leash - Bosley did not want to leave the smelly area of the arena. I took him right to his crate without saying anything and put him away. I ignored him for about 20 minutes until I was calmed down a bit. That seemed to do the trick and he didn't blow me off at all the rest of the weekend.

His next run after the "brain adjustment" was snooker. I was really happy with this run. I drew the opening sequence I had planned on the map below. I left Bosley at the start line at R2 and led out to the 4a jump. That is the furthest I have ever led out in a trial and it worked great. Bosley was totally zeroed in on me and we had a great opening (I even did 4 red jumps). We got all the way through 7 in the closing for a total of 48 points and a Q! Bosley now moves to Advanced Snooker.

Bosley's last run of the day was Starters Jumpers. It was a nice run at 31.86 seconds. Good enough for 2nd place and a Q. I have video, I will try to post in tomorrow.

Sunday we started with Jumpers. Bosley ran nice, but not super speedy. He was 2 seconds under time for 1st place and a Q. He now moves to Advanced Jumpers.

Next was Gamblers. I picked an opening sequence, but it was hard to get lots of points because everything was so spread out. We had 23 points in the opening. The gamble is below: the final is jump - 13' send to the tunnel - a go on over the jump then back towards the gamble line for the final jump. I sent Bosley to the tunnel and he ran out no problem. When he came out of the tunnel, I made sure I was close (laterally) to the #3 jump and kept my arm out to keep the pressure on him to stay out there and take the jump. He did it! Then just a call back to me to the final jump. His first gamblers Q and 1st place in his division and he was 1 of only 2 dogs who got the gamble.

The final run of the day was Standard. Bosley did a drive-by of the weaves, but thankfully there are no refusal faults on weaves in starters. I got him back, he weaved great, and finished nicely. It was a great way to end the weekend - he got 1st place and a Q on his standard run which also finished his Agility Dog of Canada title!