Agiility with Whisper Sept, 26-27

Our last agility trial was HOT. We started a new plan of action to calm Whisper down. Warm up starting the night before with a 1 1/2 mile bike ride followed by another 1+ mile walk. The day of the show we went got there early and went to the back "40" and let her off leash to run her hearts
content. It was quickly getting hot though so she didn't run as much as normal. Right before her jumpers run we jogged around the show grounds. By now it was probably pushing 95-100 degrees. Her jumpers run was very good but we missed the weave pole entrance-oh well. Then onto standard a couple of hours later. You can see in the video how much she was panting but she did quite well and earned a second place for 16 more MACH points. She is an unusual greyhound in that she performs well in heat.



In between runs I walked Echo separately from the others and worked on her attention to me and getting used to lots of commotion. She met a cute littlev17 wk old Boston-Dexter and spent some time playing with him. The play style was different than with her own breed. She would lay down and try to squash him. He loved it.



The next day was as hot if not hotter than the previous day. The standard run was an NQ-a table fault and handling error kept us from Qing. Her jumpers run though was excellent and she earned a second place for 6 more MACH points. All told we are up to 40-but no Double Quals yet. Hopefully we are close to those as well.

The extra exercise prior to the trial seemed to work. It seems counter intuitive to wear your dog before you run. However, Whisper is not your normal dog! She gets so amped up that she seems to have trouble focusing, she just wants to go-go-go. The plan seemed to work this weekend. She still had the speed and quickness but also seemed to have more focus and attention to direction.