All By Ourselves

I suppose the title is somewhat misleading, as we did have my mom, grandma, and sister there too, but for all intents and purposes, we had the training hall all to ourselves for one hour last night.

Following a mostly unproductive agility class this week, last night was both refreshing and challenging.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of originally jumping Marge at 24" instead of our usual 20", which led to her tiring all the more quickly.  Because these uprights don't have labels for the heights, I honestly get confused sometimes. Realizing my mistake, I lowered the bars and we plugged on through the rest of the night.

Here's our best run:

Here's my makeshift course map, if you're interested. I originally thought we weren't going to be able to do a darn thing with this course.  When I ran Marge through it the first few times, she was totally not listening and I was screwing up. She was undoubtedly feeding off the laughter coming from my family members as she barreled through the chute over and over again even when not asked to. Thankfully, we pieced it together, though I do see some things I could have done better.

For one, my first cue to send her into the tunnel came late.  I think the reason for this is that I was afraid she'd flip back around (how you'd practice a back cross on the flat) and ignore the tunnel.

Also, that weird cross in between the jumps at the far end of the room.  I think there are a number of ways I could have handled that without having switched hands so abruptly.  I was trying to do a front cross in that spot, but, due to the lack of space, that's how it came out. Ha!

All in all, though, I think we did well.  Fortunately, I know we won't see anything as tight or turn-filled on any Novice course, so if we were able to do this appreciably, I think we're okay.

Oh, by the way, this was a melatonin-free outing.  I intended on giving her 1.5 mg because thunderstorms were in the forecast, but I didn't remember until we were in the car on the way there.  Fortunately, she had no qualms about working in the hall, and the thunderstorms escaped us.

(She did let out a nice hefty growl at my dad later that evening when he came home.. guess you can't have everything.)

Last but not least, I'll leave you with this endearing picture of Marge on the mini-teeter.  Though probably best for smaller dogs, every time I drag it out Marge gets this look of determination and wants to go across it, even if she doesn't like the sound it makes.  She looks like she's trying so hard to be brave!