Dog Vegas - 09/12/2017

I had an awesome day at Dog Vegas running Kelly on Saturday! She may be a challenge, but when she listens to me, she's amazing to run and such a fun little agility partner! Getting her consistency up isn't a quick process, but with hard work and never giving up, I can feel us improving the more we work together. It's onwards and upwards for us, and I always feel honoured to have been chosen as her longterm handler.

Kelly and I in front of the giant annual Christmas tree at Oakridge arena.

We won one of our jumping classes with an awesome clear round, which was quite a pretty tight course but really enjoyable to run! Kelly listened to me really well and didn't put a paw wrong, and I couldn't have been happier with her!

We came 4th in our other jumping class, which was a very smooth course and ideal for a speedy dog like Kelly. I loved blasting round the course with Kelly, and we were less than half a second behind 2nd place! She listened really well again and clearly had a whale of a time! Now we just need to push even harder in an attempt to lose those precious couple of seconds that kept us from the win!

We also had a very close helter skelter run, which is basically a jumping course minus the weaves, and usually follows a circular pattern. We gained an unlucky 5 faults when Kelly burst out of a tunnel, took a jump and was unable to slow down enough for a sharp turn and skidded past the correct jump! I brought her back and sent her over it, and we continued the run gaining no more faults. I was really happy with the run, however, as she was really speedy and mostly consistent.

One of her agility runs was awesome, and would've been clear if I hadn't have put her back on her a-frame contact. She got the contact, but I'm sticking to criteria with her and making sure she always stops in the 2-on-2-off position on every contact. Not long ago, she wasn't getting any of her contacts whatsoever, and now she's getting just about all of them thanks to sticking to criteria and making sure she knows what is expected of her. Now to continue putting this into practice with the goal of getting her to stop of every contact on a consistent basis. I believe we're not too far off that point!

Our other agility run was slightly crazy. Strangely, it felt as though the old Kelly had returned! Kelly wasn't listening to me like she was in all her other runs, but I understand that dogs will be dogs and she's bound to have some runs, and even some days, like this. I kept her going and completed the course in the end. Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward, and when I look at the big picture, we're definitely taking those forward steps. Luckily this wasn't the last run of the day, and we managed to finish the day on a high note.

I just love Kelly's drive and enthusiasm for agility, and running her is helping me to be a better handler and dog trainer, and for that I am so thankful. She's helping me learn about running a very fast dog, and running a different height to small. In a similar way to when I used to run Earl as well as Ethel, I also have to switch both physically and mentally from Ethel mode to Kelly mode when running both at the same show, as they're both so different to run. Overall, I've seen a huge improvement in Kelly's agility since when I first started running her, and I'm beyond determined to keep the improvement going with her! Onwards and upwards!