It's all about the jackpots...

yeah, that's a green Q ribbon and a placement rosette...

So today was Mimi's third day in the competition ring--the first day of her second trial. It was an AKC trial held in a working county exhibition barn/arena. And I do mean working. There was a pig sale being held in the next building for most of the afternoon! A few of the pig farmers came over in the afternoon to watch us crazy agility folks play with our dogs.

The dirt-floored building could be entirely closed in but because of the beautiful fall weather, doors and gates were open all over the place. I have to admit that I was really worried about Mimi running off. There were so many places for her to get out of the ring and the building...and then it would be off into rural Collin County to parts unknown or pig farms unmapped. Because of my nerves, I acted like the greenest novice handler ever. I stationed food bags stuffed with vienna sausages at both the entrance and exit to the ring (they were on opposites sides of the arena right by large open doorways) and I also placed toys that made noise along with the treats...just in case I had to do some panicked chasing down of my truant dog.

Every time I took her for a walk during the day, I let her walk for several minutes, then I did focus games all the way back to the crate, playing "get it" and tug with her fur tug-n-treat, playing familiar crate games, doing lots of "follow me" groundwork games, and so forth.

I posted a few days ago about how much more connected I have been feeling with Mimi. This gave me confidence to walk the first course, Jumpers, from start to finish. I made two Plan Bs, finding places that I could call her to me if she was getting the zoomies or looked out of control. But I walked the entire course and made my plan as if. As if we were going to do the entire thing. I really had no idea what to expect but I knew that the course offered her the chance to at least do four obstacles before a potential meltdown. That's what I was aiming for.

I warmed her up on the practice jump and then did lots of calmer focus work while we waited in the gate area. I had a feeling that things might be different than our first trial two months ago. She rarely sniffed the ground. Her eyes never left me as she watched me to see what I was going to have her do next. She hardly even gave an eye flick to the other dogs in the gate area. After what seemed like forever, it was at last our turn.

Warning: Even though I saved these videos at a low resolution, they are still about 6 mb's each. Try downloading them during slow traffic times.

Mimi is still not feeling fully confident in these new places. You can see from the video that she is jumping with a high, rounded arc--this is quite inefficient but since I know from class that she flattens her jumps out when she is sure of herself, I believe that her jumping like this is a function of her not being sure of the arena space. Plus, she pulled off obstacles when I moved laterally too fast--in class she would have been committed to the obstacle in front of her much sooner, but in that arena today, she wasn't quite sure of things so she decided to stick with me no matter what.

But that is the most exciting thing about our two runs today. We had refusals in both runs because I pulled her off jumps by not realizing she needed a bit more support closer to the obstacles. But she pulled IN TO ME every time. She ran both courses, every obstacle, in order, and entered the ring by my side and left the ring in my arms! She didn't get the zoomies, she didn't run along sniffing the ground. She had beeeyootiful start line stays.

In fact, she got her first qualifying run in Jumpers! And she placed second in the Novice B 16" class!

Quite a few people who saw us run in August came up afterwards and complimented me on her performance in Jumpers. One guy who runs a smooth fox bitch himself told me, "you've got a real winner there." I agree. But of course I thanked them. How cool that they watched us and actually noticed what a great run we had today.

Her contacts were spot on perfect in her Standard run. Conveniently, all of the contact obstacles were clustered in the middle of the course so I clipped out a bit of video to brag a little about her totally awesome contacts!! Believe me, after struggling with Iz for years to get even a toenail in the yellow, Mimi's performance on the contacts just sends me to the moon.

And after watching the video of her Standard run, I believe that she might have qualified there too. Because I didn't stick around to the end of the class, I'll find out the results in the morning.

But that's okay. Tomorrow's another day. I exhausted her little brain today and she's hardly roused herself since we got home except to eat dinner. Tomorrow's another day for me to explore this wonderful relationship I'm building with my crazy, fabulous little terrier.