Operation Jealousy (2)

Mimi didn't Q in Open today but she completed both courses in their entirety! As my friends Gosia and DSL predicted, the tighter and more technical courses made a difference. Mimi didn't have a single refusal from running around a jump that was right in front of her. We could have Q'd in both Jumpers and Standard because our times were good and we didn't have too many allowed errors but we did get a fatal error in both.

I also confirmed that my mental state makes a huge difference to my insanely sensitive little dog. The Jumpers course was a bit challenging and I was feeling nervous when I took her to the gate area. She totally picked up on that nervousness and ran the equivalent yardage of an entire second course by running around sniffing after obstacle 5. Somehow I managed to get her back on track with no off courses, not an easy task in a complicated Jumpers course. Unfortunately, she still wasn't focused and had a bad weave entry. I made her go back and complete the weaves and after that, she was fast and on track with me. Even with all of the running around and sniffing, we still made course time!

The Standard course was fortunately very smooth and flowing. It had challenges but because of the training that I do with Debbie, none of these were going to be a problem. I really worked on my mental state before I got Mimi out of her crate, convincing myself that this was just like class. In fact, it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as class. When I took her to the gate area, I felt...normal. Just like in class.

For this run, I also pulled out two secret weapons: Jif To Go peanut butter in dog-servable plastic cups (it's almost like they made this product for sports dogs!) and slices of the grass-fed, free-range New York strip I had grilled for my own dinner last night (dusted with coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, and dried garlic and cooked rare). Mimi and Gracie were going nuts for both.

Still, Mimi was showing the usual signs of stress in the gate area but like yesterday, I didn't stress or obsess about this myself, and I made her sit on her own at the start line for both runs and did very short lead outs. Mimi broke her start line stay for the Standard run but since that is not a regular problem she has, but a stress-induced one, I went with it.

Mimi of course hit all her contacts. She popped out of the weaves at pole 10 but I made her go back and redo them, which she did perfectly and quickly. I would not have made the old Mimi go back and redo anything so this was a HUGE achievement all by itself. This is not a fatal error in Open.

No, what did us in for the Standard run was the evil table. It was a down on the table, and I refused to stress about it. I ran right to the table and said "Down!" in my happy voice. Mimi did actually drop into a down then noticed the number cone on the ground in front of her and jumped off to sniff it. The judge snickered when I sighed and said half under my breath, "...terriers... ." A table fault is allowed in Open so I put her back on the table but her concentration was broken and while she did sit, she clearly wasn't going back into a down. Rather than stress her out, I decided to continue to keep the course flow going. You gotta complete the table no matter what and we didn't, so that was an elimination fault and no Q.

But let's remind ourselves of the most amazing success of today: she completed BOTH COURSES in their entirety. Not pretty, not clean, but she did run them. No question that Gracie's presence (including all of the taunting with toys and treats) and the more challenging courses kept Mimi from slipping too far back into her old freaky tape loop.

Mimi is my agility star this weekend and I'm super proud of her.