Random Riffing

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. 


Riff is eager for his turn.....



....especially when Uncle Charter is on the line.