Hm, AKC

It’s human nature to have an unhealthy relationship with drama. From politics to dog drama, it’s just so interesting to watch people be so invested and passionate about certain things. The world of dogs is especially entertaining, because it’s just all so fricken arbitrary. I can’t even imagine how much time and effort, broken friendships and livelong bitter feelings can come about from a disagreement over coat color or tail docking. When people are passionate about something, even things that really are completely meaningless, they will hold on to their beliefs like it’s a life and death situation.

So, yeah, AKC obedience is actually CHANGING. I don’t even know how long the basic format of obedience trials has been around, but it’s been a LONG TIME. 30 Years? 40? 50? 60? And a few things have changed, the jump heights have come down, there is no more group stand stay and a few other exercises. But, for the most part, traditional obedience has been in it’s current form for probably longer than I’ve been alive. Naturally, the idea that they’re changing has thrown people into a tizzy. And what an amusing tizzy it is. Because there are no mild reactions, it’s either they’re making everything WAY TOO EASY or WAY TOO HARD. And, of course, ‘This will kill obedience, this is the end!’

The changes are very mild, I think they struck a nice compromise. They still have group stays in Novice, but the dogs are on leash and the handlers right there to protect their dogs if anything goes wrong. No more out of sight stays – hurrah! This has not gone over well with the traditionalists, that’s for sure. I will never support an exercise that your dog’s safety relies on the training of a bunch of other people you don’t know. The stays themselves were fine, but boring – I never saw the point of doing them EVERY TIME. And the replacement exercise seems fun. Well, more fun than stays. Nothing really new, despite the cries that no one will be able to teach it and it’s too hard for Open. Heh. It’s just position changes, and you can use a verbal.

Anyway, I approve of the changes, I hope they’re implemented, but then again, I’m not their target audience. Obedience is not my passion, just because it’s the same stuff every time. It was fun to get through Haku’s UD, but the UDX – meh, the same thing over and over again. I have to decide if I really want to do any more trialing with him. Yet we need SOMETHING to do. Hm …

In the meantime, AKC trial this weekend – a BIG show. Long days with lots of waiting and oh so many pinwheels. Oh, AKC, you are so convenient with by far the most trials in our area … but, oh, sometimes I really don’t like AKC agility. Sometimes the courses are fun and interesting, and we have fun. I don’t expect them to be super hard, and not everything needs to be super hard. And you certainly don’t need backsides and threadles to make a course challenging. And then you have weekends where it’s figure eights and pinwheels and running up and down the arena three times and I have no idea why I’m there. I trial because I like AGILITY. Not accumulating Qs and points, I just want to go run some fun courses and see if our training is working.

So, yeah, this weekend was pinwheels, figure eights and running up and down the arena. And when we were successful it wasn’t satisfying, and when we weren’t successful, like when BOTH dogs missed their weave entrance in their jumpers course this afternoon, after waiting around for hours to run – I am then unfairly annoyed at an easy mistake. I don’t like feeling annoyed with my dogs, it’s a silly mistake, when Bright missed her weaves in USDAA I didn’t care, there were plenty of other things on that course I wanted to try. But there was nothing I wanted to try on the AKC course, it was just a missed double Q for Bright and Navarre still needs one more jumpers Q to move to Masters.

Dogs were good, and we did have fun this weekend – and admittedly there is a hormonal pissiness at the moment which is coloring just about everything around me. This is not a new issue for me with AKC agility, or just agility in the US. But, yeah, still there. I like to run agility for agility with challenging and fun courses and I don’t care if I qualify, but I feel like I’m wasting my time and money to go to a trial to run figure eights. That doesn’t mean I will be successful on figure eights, but just give me interesting courses that I really want to run.

So Navarre missed two weave entrances today, both straight on speed approaches, something to work on. And still surprised both dogs did the same thing in jumpers. I did find it amusing, I worked on table this week after discovering how badly my dogs do USDAA table performances. Ha! They were terrible again at the AKC show, Bright especially! I use the table all the time where the dogs stay there while I’m working another dog … and they stand. So they’re all good at going to the table and lying down … and then immediately getting back up as soon as I walk away. Heh. Not really their fault.

Bright does continue to feel very easy and consistent again. Is it a fluke? No weirdness at all, she was just easy and happy. And I’m all like, “I should finish Bright’s MACH!” Heh. Well, we’ll see if that ever happens. She went 4 out of 5 this weekend, her only mistake was the weaves. This hasn’t happened in the world of Bright for quite some time, it’s pretty novel to go out and Bright just acts like we’ve actually trained these things. Novel. I hope it’s not just a phase, but I’m feeling optimistic.

Navarre also felt pretty easy and definitely better with his trial gooberness. Still some though. Not as focused as he was at the USDAA trial, thinking a lot more about what was going on at the score table and such. Better though – progress in the right direction! He finished his AX and even qualified his first run in Masters, just edging out Bright. There wasn’t much handling involved in the course though, just running back and forth and no turning, so a good one for Navarre. The baby dog is still a baby dog, but growing up, ever so slowly. Love my boy!

And loving Fall, which arrived right on time. We went hiking on the equinox and it was PERFECT. Crisp and beautiful and the dogs were so happy not to have heat and smoke anymore. We did it, another Summer survived! Love having the windows opened up again and so looking forward to Fall hikes and taking the dogs everywhere again.

Of course, then I looked at the forecast and they have 85 degrees on Wednesday. Seriously? Don’t piss me off, weather, I’m PMSing.