Day in the Dirt

Today was our first attempt at trialing indoors, at the most popular indoor venue near me (if you count 90 miles away 'near'..), Dream Park.

The whole thing went so quick, that it's honestly hard to write about it effectively.  We got there just before 1.  We went right in and found our friends, Spirit and her mom, and went on a long walk around the huge property (and snuck in some time on a children's playground - Marge loved the slide!).  Marge was extremely happy to see her Golden friend and I am glad that they spent some time together so shortly after we arrived to keep the pressure way off.

Marge was totally cool with going indoors.  She really had no issue with it... not even the noise.

I went into the main part of the building to see what they were up to in the ring I was scheduled to run in.  I went in at just the right time.. the briefing was just starting.  I handed Marge to Louie and walked the course.

The only time Marge got nervous is when the judge blew the whistle for the course to be cleared.  She recovered fairly quickly, though.  I now know that she'll be better off waiting outside or in a separate part of the building while I walk to avoid the whistle.

I did a bit of warm up at the practice jump.  Marge was very attentive, reading my cues well.  She hung out like a good girl near the start line before her run with all of the other dogs with absolutely no problem.

Our turn in the ring came up rather quickly, like it usually does in Jumpers.



Of COURSE, we got stuck waiting on the start line for about 20 seconds while they re-set a bar, which was frustrating.  But Marge was really calm and actually plopped in to a sit.  I told her to "stand" and asked for a kiss (a nose bop) before walking off in my very, very short leadout.

I thought the run was great, and really believe that the missed jump after the tunnel was my fault.  I neither cued her to go "out" nor kept my arm out/pushed my body in that direction to get her to take that jump.  Since she didn't come out of the tunnel as far away as I anticipated her to, she simply didn't see it. If not for the off course, we still could have qualified with a refusal, but that's OK.  This was a lovely run and I got exactly what I wanted - a nice, connected run, Marge reading me and not too stressed out.

After our run, I jackpotted Marge with hamburger and chicken sausage and took her right back to the warm-up jump, where I also rewarded her.

The only bad news of the day is that I realized that they are using the automatic table count rather than the judge counting down.  This was partially responsible for Marge's demise at Princeton's trial in September (our worst trialing weekend yet).  I don't think it'll be as big of an issue here, since the surrounding noise of the trial kind of drowns it out.  However, I had specifically e-mailed the trial chairwoman before entering to ask about this, and she ensured that they would not be using it.  So, I'm a little upset, because I spent money on an entry for this coming Friday (the same club is having back-to-back weekends of trials) that I'm not sure if I want to use.  It may seem silly to drive 90 minutes in the car for one 30 second run, like we did today.. but I'm not sure if I want to attempt Standard yet and might skip it.  I might be better off running her in Jumpers only and then doing Standard outdoors at a park very familiar to us, East Freehold Park.  Going to sleep on it a couple of nights and then decide.

My little girl had a fun, but short day.  I actually think the stress of not having to wait around or be crated greatly helped her focus and her attitude.  She was pooped on the way home!