The Next Day

After the crash and burn agility run the previous day I was alittle apprehensive about running the next day-even though she had seemed okay in the standard ring the day earlier. The jumpers couse was the hardest I have ever run in competition and we didn't Q although she did several hard parts successfully. Starting off I wasn't sure she really wanted to run in that ring again. She almost stopped in the same place that she crashed the day before. After getting started she picked up interest and seemed to run okay. I think she got distracted at one point and went around a jump.

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Then onto Standard which once again she Qed and was 12 seconds under time.

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A friend Silvina asked if I wanted to handle her Border Collie Maja in competition. Maja is a world class competitor. It was a blast. A well trained Border Collie is fast and can really bank turns. Maja is such as awesome dog and I was nervous to handle her-she and I have only run a part of a course in a match months earlier. I also didn't want to do a bad job handling her and failing. I was unsure how far I could send her or if she could understand my handling cues. For instance my tunnel command to Whisper is "Be Small" no one else uses that. That command came from the hiking I do in the fields with barbwire fences. I don't want the dogs to try to jump those fences so I got in the habit of telling them to "Be Small and crawl". It seemed a natural transition for the crawling in the tunnel. Anyway back to Maja- Silvina told me she didn't need to be talked to-just point to the obstacle and she should take it. Just as I was getting ready to take her in Silvina told me she had run out of the ring with other handlers to get back to her-Silvina. Guess we did okay since we Qed.

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