Ack!!!

I know, the title just does NOT go with the picture. I just wanted to add a pretty picture to the beginning of my post to help calm myself down. I'm a little wound up right now. This weekend we have a three day agility trial and I'm running BOTH of the dogs for the very first time. And they're both at the same level. And they're both at the same jump height. And it's NADAC, which I don't even like all that much. And three days later I leave for Las Vegas. So I'm wound a little bit tight lately and it's definitely coming out while I'm running the dogs.

Last week everything went fine in Heffner's class. Nothing in particular to talk about. It was a good class. The next night it was Bess' turn. She has been doing REALLY well on her weave poles lately and has been doing a full set of 12. For whatever reason (I'm actually pretty sure it was my stress starting to build up) when we were doing the 6 set of weave poles she kept popping out at the very end. She hasn't done that in a good long while. By the end of practice we had fixed it, but I still thought it was a little weird.

Then tonight in Heffner's class, his weaves were not the usual. He was popping out in places that are just not normal for him. And I kept screwing up throughout the sequences and basically felt like a mentally handicapped person out there! It was a little frustrating.

I think I've been building up the trial this weekend a little bit too much and my over focussing on it is negatively coming out in how I'm "running" my dogs. As I said before, it's a NADAC trial and NADAC isn't my favorite. The times are faster and there are more tunnels on each course. It's especially bad on the games courses. I've been told the reasoning behind it is to "save" the dogs joints from the impact of jumping by substituting jumps with tunnels. My opinion is that if you're THAT worried about your dogs joints, then you probably shouldn't be running your dog in agility. But I digress!

I've put a little pressure on myself with this trial. I'm pretty sure this will be the last NADAC trial that Heffner runs because he just REALLY can't do all those tunnels. I've pared down the courses that he's running this time around. He's not doing as many runs as he did at the last NADAC trial and I know what I'm getting into this time around and have planned the runs accordingly.

This will also be Bess' very first agility trial. I think that she can handle NADAC and I may end up running only her in these trials in the future if I decide to stick with it. I'm also running her on a limited number of runs.

So basically, I'm a little stressed about juggling two dogs who are at the same level and jump height (though thankfully not ALL the same classes), running in a venue that I'm not really that fond of because it's not really giant breed friendly, and having a three day trial a few days before a leave for a four day vacation. And this is also going to be Heffner's last trial until the fall because he's not a fan of running in the heat. However, this weekend is supposedly going to get into the 80's and I'm not really pleased about that. But I will be totally prepared.

This post has sort of wandered all over the place, but the gist of it is that I'm a little tightly wound about the trial this weekend and I need to knock it off so that I don't throw my dogs off their game. And I want to have fun! For crying out loud, it's going to be Bess' first trial!!!

Alright, that's all I've got for tonight!:O)