This past weekend, I attended a UKC agility trial with Layla. Of course, Jademan came along for the ride. Normally, I would not have chosen to enter a UKC agility trial. This venue is just not a favorite for large and/or fast dogs. The courses are so compact, and UKC even states that they like to focus on accuracy rather than speed. UKC also has a lot of funny obstacles such as non-traditional jumps, a wiggle board, sway bridge, platform jump, pause box, and hoop tunnel. However, Layla has always done quite well in UKC. She is already a UKC Agility Champion (U-ACH) and she lacked 2 legs toward her UKC Agility Champion Excellent (U-ACHX) coming into the trial. I thought that I would give it a shot, so I entered her both Saturday and Sunday. If nothing, at least this would give me the opportunity to test Layla's contacts in a trial situation.
It had been 7 months since I entered Layla in a class with contacts. Layla and I have always had contact issues. The club that we first started training agility at teaches the dog no behavior on the contacts. I was a very green handler back then, so I did not know that our lack of training a behavior on the contacts would cause struggles in the standard ring for years to come. Layla is famous for bailing the contacts, or leaping over the yellow zones. I have tried so many different things to try to stop this. No matter what I did, Layla did the same thing. She would act like she was going to complete the obstacle, but then bark at me and leap over the contact at the last minute. Entering standard was always a gamble and it was so frustrating.
This summer, I decided that we needed a big change or we could only dream of double q's. My friend Teresa and I began training just contacts several times a week. We have basically worked nothing but contacts since the beginning of June. I wanted running contacts with Lay, but after a month and a half of begging her to run full speed on the dogwalk, I am just going to hope that her speed comes with confidence. Layla is not a confident dog at all. Right now, we having what I call a "moving contact"- definitely not as fast as I like, but Layla shows no desire to bail anymore. We are truly making progress.
It appears that all of our hard work is paying off. Layla hit every single contact all weekend! She has never had this record since the beginning of our agility career!! I cannot be more thrilled with her performance this weekend. We only got one q this weekend, but nearly every run was because of my lack of using my head. In the first trial on Saturday, I anticipated a problem that never would have occurred. In the AGIII level, you cannot step over the 6-foot tape line for the weaves and the table or pause box. I wanted to be sure that Layla did not miss the last pole and exited towards me so I said, "Come!" before she entered the last pole. Why did I do that??? I have never ever said "Come!"while Layla weaves. Guess what? Layla did exactly what I told her to do. She popped out of the weaves too early and came in to me. In the second trial, Lay blew past the last weave pole, but my friends who watched our run saw nothing that I did to cause that. I took her back and this time ran past the weaves and front crossed while she was still weaving. That was the trick! In the first trial on Sunday, we were doing great until a straight line of jumps after the pause box. My body was facing a window jump off of the line of jumps and Lay took the off course. I finally got my act together for the last run of the weekend. It was a clean run and Layla took 1st! Layla actually had the fastest time in her class every single run that weekend. Now to find one more trial to get that last leg! Ugh!
Blake came and watched us on Sunday. I don't think that Jade stayed in his crate longer than 15 minutes when Blake was there. Both of my Goldens ADORE Blake and it is very obvious that he loves them just as much. It was so sweet to see Blake sitting on the floor cuddling with Jade when I returned to my crates time after time. Nothing makes me me happier. My kids give me permission to keep him around for a very long time! ;)
We are off to Denver Saturday morning and I am so very excited. There is so much to be done before we leave, but I am looking forward to getting settled in our house for a few days before we are off to Dolores for our first outdoor agility trial (in the mountains!) and our first trial in Colorado!
Here are a few pictures of my boys. I love them so much.
This is still going to make me smile in 10 years:)
They make my heart sing
Puppy hugs and kisses
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