Cloverdale Fun

Yesterday the girls and I had a day of trialling, at the Cloverdale Club grounds. Unfortunately, we were down one member of the 'team' as Red Dog managed to cut her foot (thankfully NOT her pad), on a piece of ?glass? at the park earlier in the week, necessitating a trip to the vet and 3 sutures. Certainly not the lead up to the states I was hoping for for her, now she will be a *very* novice dog, with no agility runs under her belt at all, and only one jumping run, compared to everyone else who will have had a few goes in the ring by now.

Oh well, I digress. So Terra, Shimmer, Ink and I spent the day yesterday in the sun (thankfully it didn't get to its threatened 30 degree forecast). Shimmer and Ink were there for some much needed trial experience, and Terra was there because I couldn't decide whether to enter her in the states or not.

Ink was up first in Novice Agility. I accidentally stood on her on the start line, and then lead out a good distance, leading to a very un-motivated start on her behalf and a not hugely motivated run. Lesson learnt, take some of the advice you are doling out to others and run with the soft anxious dog! Her contacts were nice though.
Terra was next in MJ, and she had a strong run until I handled badly and caused her to pull a bar. Was happy with how she felt though. Shimmer had a lovely run in EA on a hard course that included a hard entry into the weavers and an AF from almost a standing start and was clear..up until the end where a front cross not properly rotated caused her to go off course right at the end. BAD handler, good dog!
She had a go at the MJ course and did quite well, with a couple of bars down but no off courses.

Terra was up just before lunch in MA and the course was nice, spread out with lots of room to run and really only 1 challenge (a DW tunnel discrim that Terra has practised MANY times in her millions of hours of training over the years). To my happy surprise she really put her foot down for this run and I had a brief glimpse of the Terra of old. She won the course easily, by over a second. Go the 9 year old dog!! Love my Terra-Bear.

Ink was last, in NJ. Having learnt my lesson in NA, I revved her up as much as I could, and did not leave her off the start line. With lots of 'go go go' encouragement from me she ran clear and to my BIG surprise came 1st in her height (500), beating a much faster dog. I am not naive enough to think this means she is destined for big things, but it was a nice surprise with a dog who has been quite frankly hard work and not always that much fun to train! I just hope that I can help her to find the confidence that must be somewhere inside her to put her foot down so we can have some serious fun out there!

Next weekend I have the 2 babies in the ADAA trial to give them a little ring experience and then the weekend after is the state trial (our biggest for the year). I will have (baring accidents!) the whole team there, probably the only time for a very long time I will be running 4 dogs at an event! Should be busy, if nothing else!

Vids below, once again kindly taped and uploaded by the Karen/Colin team!

Ink:


Shim:


Terra: