With the USDAA trial coming up on Saturday, my brain seems to be veering into a deep-freeze zone more often than usual. In an effort to stay calm and thoughtful, I tell myself: "You only entered three Starters classes, for goodness sake. It's like Totally No Big Deal."
But that statement is increasingly littered with others, such as: "Holy crap, what have I done" "I can't even
run yet" "We haven't even made it through an entire course in class yet" "Why do I do this to myself" "Riff would be World Class if he had a decent handler" and "If only I could figure out our timing" and...and....
So I have to counter-balance, out-weigh, and otherwise
banish those thoughts with better ones: "Riff is adorable - and incredibly talented" "Riff is having
so much fun" "It will be super to see my old agility friends again" "Riff is a dynamite jumper and excellent weaver" "We're doing GREAT" and "Time to steer this nervous energy I'm feeling into universal acts of good will for all of mankind."
;-)
Oh, you know - stuff like that.
In the meantime, we continue to wend our way through our ReTrain Weave Entry program. Today we got through Lesson #7 - "Work Riff 'down the arc,' with the weaves on my left, starting from a close distance (6 to 10'), and adding handler
walking." He was successful 75% of the time...ending with an EXCELLENT set of entries. (We also got to visit the loveliest puppy in the world - Clever!)
We did Lesson #6 yesterday, right before our LeapDog class. It was the same as #7, only with the weaves on my right. He hit the entries exactly 100% then, all the way down the "clockface," and even on course during class. Wahoo! He's been hitting 100%, with the weaves on my right, the last couple of times. Hopefully we'll soon have the same success rate on the left side.
We had a lot of fun on Monday....with a nice walk in the morning, followed by Riff's first-ever Cindy diFranco massage. She liked him. She said he has "lovely structure," "no physical issues," and that he was very trusting, for a young "scared, shy dog." It was his first time on a table (although I suppose he was on some kind of table for neutering). I did say to her, "I like to think of him as cautious, and selective." Cindy was incredibly nice, and she spent quite a bit of time with Riff. He seemed to really like it!
Later Monday afternoon Riff and I met up with my friend Sandy at the AARF field (where Riff did fairly well on Lesson #5). Sandy brought her 2-year-old Standard Poodle "Kenya" to check out the field. Kenya is a lovely RED dog, and is as sweet as the day is long. I loaned Sandy Laurie Leach's book "Agility for Beginners." Maybe we'll have a new player, soon. ;-)
Monday was MLK Day, so I watched his 'I Have A Dream' speech on YouTube. Marvelous. That evening, some theatre friends and I had a long discussion about class differences, and Occupy, and civil rights. It was lot of food for thought....will it some day turn into action? Hmmmmm....
Yesterday Riff and I happily veered right back into agility. Our class at LeapDog was grrrr-eat. I left a bit early, because my back went "tweaky"...but we sure had fun while we were there.
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Riff is eager for his turn..... |
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....especially when Uncle Charter is on the line. |