The Agony and Ecstasy
of Agility
The agony and ecstasy of agility – okay, maybe I am being a
little dramatic because agility is just a game. But there is some truth in it. Most of us train our dogs at home a couple of times a week,
some of us more. We attend one or
two classes a week as well as attend a seminar or so a year. All to train our dogs and us to run
around an agility course and complete it with a clean run. We pay between $15 and $25 for a run that
will last between 25 and 55 seconds at an agility trial. We are usually up early on the morning
of the trial, driving at least an hour, waiting for several hours for our turn,
and then we run with our partner for under a minute. We want so much to be successful not just for ourselves, but
because we love our partner so much.
Our dogs work so hard to please us and do what we ask. They follow our bodies, hands, feet,
turn of our shoulders, our speed, our voice, our words, and our emotions. They try so hard to do just what we ask
them and we want so much for them to be successful. So, indeed it can be agony we aren’t successful and glorious
ecstasy when we are.
I’ve been participating in agility for a number of years and
this is my third dog I’ve trained.
My last agility dog went blind and it ended her agility career
abruptly. Now I have a 23-month-old
English springer spaniel (just turned 23 months on Friday) that is my
partner. I’ve been training him in
some capacity since I brought him home at 8 weeks. At the breeders he had been going through tunnels and
tugging. We have had a spectacular
career up through January – qualifying almost every run. Then I went to Hawaii – well someone
had to go – and came back with a bad back and a re-injured ankle. Hiking on lava can be rough on the
body. I got home late on Friday, picked
the dogs up from the kennel, and had an agility trial on Saturday. What was I thinking? I hadn’t practiced with my dog for a
month or more. We actually did
fairly well and he got his Open title in Jumpers. He needed one more qualifying run to have the Open title in
Standard.
For the next month I worked with my physical therapist to
heal. My back and hip got better,
but exercises for my ankle seemed to exacerbate the injury. Next I had a three-day trial. On first day we did well with me
limp-running around the course and qualified both runs. The next day my ankle/foot was swollen
and hurt so I asked my instructor to run Magnum. Not all dogs will run for other people. Magnum ran for her, but he was
tentative and worried. He stayed
with her and completed the course, but didn’t qualify. The third day I ran him and of course
we didn’t qualify. I couldn’t do
the turns or run like he needed. I
was okay with all of this because I knew it was due to my injuries.
Now my back and hip are normal and my foot/ankle is much
better. So this past weekend we
have another three-day trial. Alan
is videoing it for me. The first
day we had a great jumpers run, but Magnum dropped a bar. Our standard run was great until Magnum
got near the baby gates where people were sitting. He lost his focus and acted liked he saw someone. We didn’t qualify. I was bummed out.
Over the years, Alan has videoed most of my agility
runs. I’d watch them, but I don’t
think I learned much from them.
This time I did learn. I
realized that Magnum dropped the bar of a double jump because I was doing a
back cross after the jump and he didn’t know what I was doing. He looked to me instead of the way we
were going and down came the bar. He
is a young dog and I need to provide support to him. I treated him like he was more experienced. I realized that with the standard course
getting so near the crowd of spectators he lost his focus. By the time he refocused on me, we were
past the obstacle he was supposed to take.
The next day we qualified in the jumpers run and placed
second. The standard run he again
lost focus went around a jump, but had a good finish. I tried to keep his focus, but it wasn’t enough. I watched the videos several times
trying to decide what I needed to do.
I decided I would say his name and clap my hands, all with delight and
enthusiasm. The last day he had a
great jumpers run, qualified and came in second. Then there was the standard run with lots of challenges
besides the weave poles with a sharp turn to several jumps right in front of
the baby gates. We made it through
the first few challenges, then the turn.
So I enthusiastically said his name, clapped, and stayed with him. I thought it went smoothly and he made
the jumps. Next was the a-frame
into a tunnel by the dog walk, a jump and sharp turn to the teeter a jump, turn
and two last jumps. Previous
handlers were challenged by the speed of the dogs coming out of the tunnel. I too was challenged and almost didn’t
get Magnum to the teeter, but he made it.
I was late in a front cross after the teeter, in part because Magnum had
lost his two-on and two-off on
contacts. So, he came off the
teeter on wrong side of me, but I quickly sent him over the jump and backcrossed
– and he didn’t drop the bar. We
had a clean run and came in first.
Magnum and I celebrated with hugs, him eating treats and I
sang “I feel good, so good, la da da da da da da da – OO!!” Okay – I wasn’t James Brown, but I
tried. We are in Ecstasy!! It’s a day later and we are
still feeling good and I am learning from those videos. On that last run, he had briefly lost
focus but got it back when I said his name and clapped. I can hear someone near Alan on the
video saying how I saved it.
Yeah!!
