Finally, we do something right

This past weekend Molly and I did Utility at the Lansing, MI shows. We did OK, qualifying in the mid/upper 180’s both days. There were some mistakes, of course, but none of the them were major, and we both stayed on the same page the entire time, which was a big improvement.

We only did Utility (instead of trying for UDX legs) because we had been having some trouble staying connected and focused between exercises. Some trouble? As Kent Delaney put it last spring, “It looks like she doesn’t even know you’re in the ring.” UKC hasn’t been quite so bad, but we’ve been struggling in AKC.

Judie Howard gave me some very useful tips on improving attention and Pat Kelly pointed out what a fine line you have to walk with a dog like Molly. She has high drive and she wants to please, but she also is independent enough that if you are too loose and happy, she’ll do whatever she wants. But if you are too harsh and strict, she’ll opt out of the game.

Just realizing that I had a very small margin for error helped. It means that I have to focus more on my handling and Molly’s attitude, making sure I adjust quickly to keep her working. It also reassured me that my training is not so bad, it’s just managing Molly in the ring that’s tricky. In fact that had been the biggest frustration - brilliant runs in practice, great attention out of the ring, followed by distracted and spaced out performances. Of course not all of our performances were that bad - I sometimes hit a good combination almost by accident.

So this weekend was a test to see if what Judie and Pat were telling me about getting and holding attention would help. It did. We may have made some mistakes and scored low for the class, but Molly was with me and keyed in pretty much the whole time. She even survived a sendout to the wrong corner and a stand for exam with the one thing she really fears, a vacuum cleaner, running at the other end of the hall. Now if we can just keep this trend going next year…