Ecstasy to Agony

We took the baby and 2 dogs to a local CPE trial last weekend. The day before, the baby had a stroller accident which scared us but he is fine. But I have been sick and Dawn has been doing night duty so we were both pretty tired and stressed going into the weekend.

On Saturday, Wyatt got a standard level 4 Q with a real nice run on a very challenging course. He knocked a bar but still got first place in a class of 15-20 dogs since he was the only 20" dog to qualify. I thought we got out of level 4 with that Q but since it was not clean, we still need one more level 4 standard Q to finish level 4. We also qualified in level 5 wildcard with a real nice run and another first place. In snookers, he broke the start line and went off course for an NQ. On the second standard run, we had some contact issues. I have been finding the last run of the day can be hard for us. All in all, I was pretty with Saturday.

Sunday was another story. I guess you and your dog can just have bad days. This was one of them.

I did baby duty so I was pretty exhausted. I think that Wyatt is so sensitve to me that when I am off I must send him the wrong (of at least different cues). I think dogs can also just have bad days too. But we had contact issues all day - even teeter flyoffs - which I rarely see. After 3 bad runs, I thought we might rally for our 2 strongest games - snooker and jumper. We had a good snooker run going but I gave him a strong and early wrap signal and he totally crashed into the jump and landed on his back. He limped off the course.

For jumpers Wyatt seemed fine so I ran him. He actually had a great run but I did not signal him strongly enough for a tunnel right near the end the of course and I just kept running instead of correcting.

We ended up going 0 for 5! I wonder how much my stress and exhaustion affect him and how much is his own stuff. Well, in any case, I realized that I need to be at my best (or at least half decent) to run him. We ended up with 2 firsts and 7 NQ's for the weekend!