1 Year Anniversary

One nice thing about Facebook is the memory feature, it is fun to see random glimpses into what was happening on this day in past years. Recently Navarre’s first ever trial popped up, well, his AKC debut anyway. I had randomly decided to head out to Utah and decided to throw him in an AKC trial just for fun. He was only 16 months, had just learned how to weave, had just moved up to 20 inches – he was one raw puppy.  He had a great time with lots of running around jumps as he waved to his ‘fans’.

It was no surprise to me that Navarre was going to take his sweet time growing up, and he did not disappoint. We haven’t trialed all that much this year, but we have had plenty of exposure to new places and venues. Running Navarre in trials vs practice is quite different, just because he does need to check things out and goes wide as waves to the audience on course. And that’s okay, my goal with any baby dog is to have a good time and making trialing fun and stress free. There is so much going on at a trial, it’s quite overwhelming, every dog is different with how long it takes them to feel comfortable and confident in the trial environment. Fenwick took three years!

So the big news is today was the first ever trial that Navarre did NOT run around any jumps or wave to the crowd – it felt … just like running Navarre. It was actually rather novel, I think my baby is growing up! Well, kind of. He’s still a giant puppy, and it was so cute to see him romping all over the field with his new friends he made today. He just wants to romp and play like a big floppy puppy, that’s for sure. My other dogs just roll their eyes at him.

I can see the agility dog Navarre will be someday, and he’s going to be amazing. I’m already so happy with what he’s doing, we have our issues, every team does – but the skills that I tried to put on him have really stuck. He’s so easy to run when he’s not running around jumps! He’s not the tightest dog, but I never expected him to be – he makes up for it, he can really move out and I love how comfortable his jumping and handling is. And he’s so happy, he really does love the game and tries so hard for me. I feel incredibly lucky to have my big dorky puppy, just adore him to pieces.

Had so much fun with all the dogs today, Haku even got to tag along and spent lots of time chasing the Jolly Egg out in the field and hanging out with random border collies. MOST border collies do so well with each other, because they IGNORE each other, except for Navarre, who didn’t get the memo.

Such a fun little USDAA trial up at Daisy’s, it moved along really well, with two rings. The weather cooperated and it stayed cool, I had no complaints about the outdoor ring. Well, except for it was cool because the smoke was back and once again the world looks like it’s about to end. And when we’re sitting around running dogs in circles while meanwhile the world is burning down around us, this is probably a sign of some sort. But I don’t know what to do about it, so I played with my dogs.

Surprisingly I didn’t end up with any conflicts, I ran back and forth a lot from the different rings, but it all worked out. I even ran ALL my runs today, which is crazy. 5 runs for each dog. But it didn’t seem like too many, and the dogs were excited are raring to go the whole time. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I gotta say, it was so much fun to back at agility. We enjoyed the Summer of Tricks and Hiking, but it’s not the same. I do love agility, and there were some fun courses today.

Brightypants was exceptionally happy to be there, when I think of what she was like when we first started trialing, such a different dog these days. And that took years for her to just let it all hang out. She doesn’t care about the dogs or people anymore, there were even CHILDREN there, and she gave them a bit of side eye, but she didn’t even go dramatic on me.

Bright really surprised me, other than some low one and two jump work, we had no warm up coming back from our break. She’s fat, I thought her pad might rip on the contact equipment, she hasn’t been jumping 22 in forever – and she did great. She knocked one bar, the double in steeplechase, but I think that’s it. Perfect weaves too (for both dogs, what superstars!). Running dogwalk, well, not so much, we gave it a try in gamblers and then put a stop on it for the rest of the runs (which needed a stop anyway). She was just SO MUCH FUN. Gah.

Which was the theme of the day, I love my dogs, they’re super fun, we all love agility – especially when the courses are interesting. Almost all the issues were mine, naturally. Except maybe the table, which Bright got up four times during the count – ahem. But, once again, how often to we actually practice the table? Yeah, never. I also tried to fudge a rear cross with Bright by using a threadle arm, which worked once, then she did the correct thing the next time I tried it, which was to, well, threadle. Bad handler. A couple non-supported jumps too – also bad handler.

I was happy with all the runs with the dogs, and we even pulled off some Qs, Bright got masters standard and gamblers, steeplechase and biathlon jumpers (I messed up biathlon standard – whoops!) – Navarre got an advanced gamblers, and biathlon standard and jumpers. We dropped a bar in starters standard, so our Starters Curse remains, and sliced the broadjump in steeplechase (my fault!). I was thrilled with all our runs though – did I mention how much fun my dogs are? Good times.

There is some video floating around out there, that may or may not be shareable at some point …

I’ll leave this ridiculously cute pap/yorkie puppy in its place:

Frankie!