Oh Funky Monkey!!

Although Caoilte had been a bit more boisterous at show and made occasional contact with my hand at the past couple of shows it was due to me using the wrong hand or being out of position. I thought we would work through it as in training she continued to be good. Nothing prepared me for the performance at Weardale show at the weekend. On the Saturday I was a bit tired and the show started later so walking dogs rings and doing runs was a bit hectic. I still made sure she got extra exercise before going into the ring. She started of with a jumping round, doing a lovely wait then every turn the old Monkey was back barking at me, jumping in front of me and looking at me but worst of all despite keeping my hand up and giving clear hand / arm signal reinforced with GO her mission seemed to be to get my hand. The higher I took my arm out of her reach the higher she jumped to grab me. I put her in a down calmed her down calmly and quietly tried to run again. Her behaviour continued. In hind site I should have put her in a down thanked the judge and calmly left the ring. However when in that situation it is very difficult to know what to do, especially when I was shocked at the old Monkey's return. I tried to be as helpful and consistent with her as possible. To no avail. I made sure we had one to one time tried to get rid of excess energy on the Saturday and Sunday morning. I put it down to being tired and was so looking forward to friends seeing the vast improvement in my wee lass. I could not have been more relaxed on the Sunday, prior to her first run we were sitting chatting at the champ ring she was curled up on my knee almost asleep. We stood in the queue I had her lead on one finger and expected nothing from her only hoped she would work with me. Again did a recall over the first jump, she took the lead over the long jump into the cloth tunnel, I command her to turn left then the demon appeared she jumped in front of me, then leaped jumping at my face whilst I froze. I had no idea what she wanted me to tell her I gave her as much help as my now shaking knees would allow, I had to try and keep my hands out of her reach. The judge was standing at the weave and I gave her her command she gave the judge a funny look and backed away a wee bit, I just repeated the command she did a nice 12 pole weave and tyre to finish came out the ring appeared to be the wee Monkey I love to bits. All the hard work I have put in over the last year was gone, we were back to square one. I was really upset and at a loss of what to do. She does not do it in training. The only thing I can think of is in training the jumps are wider apart than at shows and she has more space, when at shows my position could be wrong as I am used to the wider course and am not positioned where I would be If the jumps and distance between obstacles was the same as at a show. Her graded and combined classes are not straight up and down and there is an element of close work round the jumps needed, or directional change which she can do on a wider course cause I can not run very fast. On a standard course I my position is different perhaps she is confused. I am racking my brains to try and find the solution and can only hope we understand each other one day. As a dog trainer I have always been able to help solve others problems and don't have a problem within my own pack they all know and respect me as leader. But oh ma Monkey is testing me in the ring. I have a knowledge of psychology and using techniques are often useful and solve many a problem but this one has got me beat so far. But she is a joy to have and to run when we get it right so our learning curve continues. So will just have to stock up on the Kleenex again LOl

Agility update

Things have been a bit hectic, did a training week with Logan ah boy does he have the bug. Every time Kenny was praising or motivating another dog in the group my arm nearly came out of the socket, he broke out of the garden to try and get Kenny to play jumping. Kenny came up with a fab idea of doing the 2x2 entry to continue teaching the angles then into the training weave. While Kenny was talking to me about it, Logan thought he would go and do the channel weave without any help from us, what a dog. So we are now working on bringing in the poles which has been done quite quickly to try and slow him down a bit and teach him to respect the weave. I still have not given it a command other than go, when he finally can weave consistently then I will add the weave command. He still has not the A frame other than play tug on the contact and the dog walk so we have a long way to go but boy am I enjoying training him He is like a wee sponge takes it all in his stride.

Poor monkey I have judged one of the days at the last two shows and not really been very focused on my agility. Had a cracker of an agility run with her and I got lost with 3 jumps to go!! If she could work this computer would have put me on eBay "Failed dog handler free to bad home". She was really cheeky in the ring on Saturday her face was a picture when she hopped of the dog walk headed for the next jump I was in prime position so just ran to her picked her up, her face was a picture. I put her back on the contact thanked the judge and left the ring laughing, continued to laugh all the way back to the van. Over the last year we have progressed so much I can cope with silliness as I know there is a wee star waiting for the right course with her handler in the zone.