Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Preparation, Irritation and Red Wine



Sitting, relaxing and having a nice glass of red wine.  Well and writing this post of course.  This coming weekend we have our biggest Agility Weekend of the year in Bloemfontein.  It varies from year to year, but this year it is a five day weekend that includes 5 Championship Shows, the KUSA (Kennel Union of South Africa) Nationals, an Inter-provincial Dog Jumping event AND an FCI show.  For Chaos this means 20 rounds, Quake is running 10 rounds and me... well I am running my arse off apparently.  This will be the first time that Quake is travelling with me.  Now some people might disagree with me, but dogs are just as different as human beings when it comes to travel.  Echo never had issues travelling and was always just his good old self.  No jet lag so to speak. Delta was a nut job... put him in a car for a few hours and sleep at a different venue and Delta lost the few brain cells that he had.  It was always entertaining that is for sure!  Chaos is awesome to travel with and tends to be even BETTER at away shows, provided I keep it together of course!



I don't know what Quake will do, so I have entered him very conservatively, running only two rounds a day.  Considering his up-and-down performance over the last while, I am really not expecting anything, I will withdraw where necessary and just take it as it comes.  The problem with leaving my house for five days means leaving a husband with two sick dogs.  Delta's ear is still stitched and Echo is still up and down.  Not only that, but there is always a ton of things that need to be done.  Washing, pre-cooking meals for the better half (haha, he doesn't mind cooking, but I prefer NOT to come home to a kitchen that is a complete disaster)... and today I had to ATTEMPT to sort something out at the bank... it was NOT successful, which lead to some serious irritation.  Oh and pack and make sure all the dogs and cats' meds and food and emergency supplies are in order.  Oh yes and have to still have my car cleaned and wash and dip the dogs.  Lets not forget making sure that all my admin is in order... okay my brain is frying so I am just going to stop thinking about it now.

The dogs of course don't understand why I am not really training them this week and the more I explain to them that they are going to be knackered after the weekend, the more they bug me and bring toys and spin in circles and bark at me.  I AM doing little things with them, some conditioning and just running a contact or two daily, but apparently that is not good enough.



On a completely different note, I DID train Volt a bit today.  And the monkey knocked a bar for the first time.  Before I even had time to react, or NOTICE it for that matter, he had already gotten a heart attack and birthed a squirrel and ran off into the far distance.  Now the bars are still on about 10cm and he just mis-judged his take-off, so I really was not concerned.  I called him back and he came as close as 3m from the jumps, but that was IT.  He ran circles and circles and squares and triangles around the jumps, but would not come closer.  What now?  I decided to just take a break and returned to the yard about an hour later, he was just fine, the earlier cardiac arrest and squirrel birthing apparently forgotten.  True as bob though, he knocked another bar and the same thing happened.  Aah the presence of new training challenges, gotta love it.  When I went out this afternoon he was fine again and ran like a dream, however this is something I need to think about.  First of all, I don't want a dog that regularly knocks and demolishes courses, so on the one hand I am at least glad that Stein is CONCIOUS of knocking.  But I do NOT want a dog that becomes a skitty rodent birthing pup that needs a pacemaker.  He is not overly sound sensitive or movement skitty and has no issues with being touched in any way.  In fact he couldn't care less about any other movement or noise and doesn't mind any object touching him.  So why did a silly little knock affect him so much?  Well I have the WHOLE weekend to over-analyse it, over-think it, start stressing, stop stressing, find a solution and apply it. Needless to say the monkey is also going with to Bloem, he gets to socialise and do all those fun things.



One thing I WILL tell you is that this weekend is going to be VERY VERY interesting, and not only in good ways.  However looking forward to seeing out-of-province friends, having a few drinks with buddies and running the boys.  Bring on the weekend baby!

Oh yes and awesome news another round of mine from WODAC (the one I really wanted has been uploaded) Here it is:



All photos courtesy of Melissa Wilson.

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