I'm not sure why they look so grim. It seemed like we were having fun at the time. A long trial, a little bit grueling. A lot of classes, we ran Steeplechase and Jumpers in the dark on Saturday. All of us very tired by Sunday afternoon.
Otterpop was happy to run Saturday, not so much Sunday. She prefers the 1 day schedule, thank you.
Gustavo, on the other hand, needed a couple Sunday morning classes to get out his cuckoo brain, then did nothing but get more focused as the weekend went on. He looks a little tired and haggard in this nighttime jumpers run, but hanging on. He is more of a 2 day trial kind of guy.
We confirmed that he no longer can go near a teeter totter. Not at all. For reals. His teeter is gone, and I don't know when it will be back. This is pretty inconvenient in dog agility these days. This gamble, for instance, was sending to a couple of jumps then the teeter totter. I gave him an opening far away from it, then ran out. We had a nice time, but it sort of defeats the whole thing of "competition". We just ran around on a course then bailed when the buzzer went off.
He would like to stick with jumpers and steeplechase and things where the teeter totter isn't for now on. Maybe gamblers if the teeter totter is far away. This is ok by me. We'll probably take a little break from trialing. Maybe team small dog will just, Poof, and vanish.
8 comments:
I seem to recall that Gustavo has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Teeter. I'm sure you can repair their relationship once more with your excellent practice skillz on your lovely practice pasture. A dog's brain is a mysterious thing, and some are more mysterious than others. We just moved to a new house, and our dog refuses to go up any of its steps. After years of being perfectly fine with various kinds of steps in several different houses, this house is apparently just different. All the steps in this house seem to have monsters living under them, resulting in major freakout and having to be carried up steps.
Spur would like to commiserate with Gustavo. Her teeter had suddenly disappeared as well. It is very SCARY in case this isn't clear. Thankfully, she is in heat so no trials for us and we can just find rings to rent to try and retrain it. I will have to take out the liver sausage in the squeeze tube. Training is fun, but retraining is even funner (right?)
Yes. His teeter has been broken before. Then it got fixed. Then it was funny. Then it got better. Then it got great. Then it got sometimes weird. Then it was great. Then it got broken.
We will take a teeter break for winter, and let him forget about the scary horrors.
Poof!
Teeter, Schmeeter. Gooey looked really good in many of his runs despite the teeter hatred. Otterpop too.
You look absolutely marvolous in your Orange sweatshirt and ran confidently keeping Gustavo going despite his not wanting the do the teeter! You made it fun for him and it showed by him winning:
-Jumpers Sat
-Jumpers Sun
and a 2nd in Steeplechase!!!
Not shabby!
Totally understand taking a break, but hope to see you back at it in the spring. Would miss you terribly.
I took a break and just told everyone we were revisiting our foundation. Came out of hiding some months later when I started to miss the camaraderie. No one gave me a hard time about it, and our foundation did actually benefit.
Just wanted to say that I think about TSD frequently but especially at Christmas when I admire the dogs-with-antlers postcard that (still) adorns my refrigerator. Hope you all have a good holiday!
Can you do that? Just "Poof?" There otta be a law!
Breaks are good. Take a break
2 of the 4 dogs I've run in agility have had teeter issues at some point or another. Starlet's was obvious from the first introduction and my goal became for others to not know there was a problem, but I knew I could never forget. It would come and go, rarely was done in a gamble, but since I'd thought at one point we'd never have a teeter, I was quite pleased. Finn's was weird, around 3-4 something happened and he developed a fear of them. Teeter fears are so frustrating, because it's hard to proof them for all the varieties they'll see in a show situation. Heck, with Starlet I had 3 teeters in my tiny backyard at one point and would gamble teeters with Max while feeding her cookies for not being a fish on the line at the end of the leash. ;-)
And you're a total loser if you don't go to Santa Rosa in January! Vic would love to take a romp around a numbered course with you. :-)
Hi Mia! Broken teeters are a bitch. We broke up with our awesome team for Santa Rosa, because there is nothing like having a team mate with a guaranteed E in standard...the one time team day is on my day off! We may or may not show up for the other days, I guess I will decide next week. It will be a fun trial.
It's a good thing we're on a teeter break. Our agility field is now on the other side of the creek. When the water goes down, we will see if teeters are still scary.
A mystery!
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