Today was a busy day of training. I started off the morning by heading up to ride Cadence. Although she still has a little bit of swelling in her left hock, she is not sore on it. She was pretty full of herself - it was very cold, and we were riding in the indoor today. It was a long ride, but I learned a lot. I mostly learned that I have a lot of work to do before I am ready to show next month. I think Cadence is ready, but the long period I have taken off from the show ring is hindering me. Yep, I am out of shape. I am happy that for the most part I still have my feel. Even though it was a tough ride, it was wonderful riding my horse again. I don't think I will ever take that for granted again!

From there I took Pretzel to his scentwork class, and I feel like he is making improvements and learning! After that, I got home and then took Pizza and Dolphin to the training building for a late night agility session. Pizza worked really well. I alternated working Pizza and Dolphin, and Dolphin got really motivated while watching Pizza work. I think both dogs got a lot out of our training session. Pizza and Noodle have an agility trial this weekend...I am hopeful!.

Well, we will call today a "learning day". I learned two major things:

     ★  If I get too far ahead of Pizza (especially coming out of the tunnel), she will chase me and make mistakes because of her speed.
     ★  I get a more accurate weave entry from Pizza if I am behind her when cueing the weaves.

Our first class was Open Standard - Pizza's first time running in Open. It was a bit of a train wreck (though in looking back on the video, it was a lot better than my initial impression after running it). St=he started off really well, but we got discombobulated when we had to do a wrap into the weaves...she wrapped the wrong way and it made for an awkward weave entry, and she missed the entry. When I went to bring her back around, she stress-sniffed, then ran by the judge, and then came back. Our second attempt was perfect.

She nailed all of her contacts and her table, but the ending was a mess - coming out of the tunnel towards the end I was far ahead of her, and she had a massive burst of speed...this took her over the jump and she couldn't control her speed on the teeter and ended up bailing off. I had her re-attempt, and she did find and finished out.

We had Novice Jumpers as the last class. She just needs one Q to finish her title. Today was not that day! She actually did pretty well, but did go investigate the bar setter sitting in the corner, and when she came back at breakneck speed, she knocked the jump. Other than that, it was a good run (and we did a beautiful rear cross to a wrap!). Try try again tomorrow! Noodle will get a chance to play tomorrow, as she is entered in 2 standard and 2 jumpers run, all at the excellent level. Fingers crossed...

Well, it was a down and up kind of day. Let's start with the down: In one word: NOODLE. Why on earth do I let myself become the least bit confident with her? I should know by now that when I started feeling secure in my training, that's when she breaks my heart. Today was one of those days.

Noodle had 4 runs today. They progressively got worse. It was almost like we went back in time to a year ago when she couldn't control the adrenaline rush from agility trials. She worked incredible when she was on task, but when something didn't go perfect, off she went and it got crazy. By the third run, I felt she was escalating emotionally, so I ended up pulling her from her last run. It was a crushing disappointment, especially after we had so much success the past 5 months. I really thought we were on the right path, but today was a major setback.

Now I guess I go back to the drawing board and figure out if there is something I should do differently. It's like the never-ending puzzle, with several key pieces missing. It is an awful feeling to end up back where I started over a year ago in training. I will say, I have noticed this week that Noodle has been acting a little differently - more on edge with everyone and overreacting to things. I wonder if she is coming in season? She is not due for another 3 months or so. I guess we shall see...

After Noodle's morning, it was Pizza's turn for another round of Open Standard and Novice Jumpers. Open Standard was first, and it was a trainwreck. I think pretty much every fault or mistake possible was made. Let's see, she knocked a bar, went off course, had a few refusals, had a table fault, bailed off the teeter (again!), tried to jump on the judge, and messed up her weave entry. Yep, that about covers it. Let me tell you there is no heavier feeling than failing with BOTH of your dogs. But then came Novice Jumpers...

...and it was a clean run and 1st place!!! It was a bit on the edge of control, but she ran it wonderfully, and totally turned my weekend around. Amazing how I could be so down in the dumps for hours, and one good run turns my mood a complete 180. Maybe I am not such a failure of a trainer after all...

We left Ohio on Tuesday morning and drove for 2 days, arriving in Orlando yesterday afternoon. We had RV reservations at a local campground - "Bill Frederick Park", only about 7 miles from the show at the convention center. What a wonderful place to camp! We took the dogs for several walks to enjoy the weather. It was kind of cool for Florida (in the 60's), but still way warmer than Ohio right now!

Today only Dolphin was entered in the all-breed show, mainly for practice and training. I knew that the huge, loud convention center would be intimidating for an 8 month old puppy, so today was the day to get him acclimated and comfortable in that environment. There was a huge entry of Weims. I was so proud at how well he did, and especially proud when he made the cut in best of breed....pretty amazing for a puppy to make the cut (and only 3 dogs specials were selected for the cut!). He didn't get a ribbon, but the experience was invaluable. Pretty cool to make the cut at his very first show as a special, since finishing his championship last month!

Tomorrow is our big day - Pizza shows in the NOHS Finals and both she and Dolphin show in the AKC Puppy Stakes. I am just hoping to have fun. Both dogs are the youngest dogs entered in their classes, so I don't expect much. I do expect fun!

Well, today is the big day! We headed over to the Orange County Convention Center early in the morning. First on the agenda was the NOHS Finals with Pizza. The top 10 owner-handled dogs from 2019 and 2020 were invited to compete in the championship. The qualifying period was October 2019-October 2020. Pizza was at a big disadvantage because she wasn't old enough to even show until February, and then March 1st the shows all shut down from the pandemic. So when they started up again at the end of July we had to scramble to try and earn enough points to qualify in just 2 remaining months. Pizza pulled through and we managed to finish the qualifying period in 7th place. She was the youngest dog entered!

I have been practicing consistently with her, making our stacking a part of her daily routine. Our practice paid off - she stacked wonderfully, gaited beautifully, and it was a truly wonderful moment when we got pulled to the front of the line and selected as Best of Breed at the 2020 NOHS Finals! It was so unexpected, and so incredible that we accomplished this after everything that happened this year!

I didn't have much time to rest and revel in the win, because shortly after we were done it was time for the AKC National Championship Puppy Stakes. I had both Dolphin and Pizza entered, and Dolphin was the youngest puppy entered. He went first, and won his class. Pizza got 2nd in hers, so I took Dolphin in for best of breed. She turned it on and showed fantastic, and he WON! It was an amazing win over some top-ranked dogs, and I couldn't be more proud!

Later that day I had to prepare for two groups - Pizza in the NOHS Finals Sporting Group and Dolphin in the Puppy Stakes Sporting group. Pizza showed first, and she showed wonderfully, and made the cut out of 32 dogs in the group! No placement after that, but just making the cut was a win for me. Dolphin showed next, and he did pretty well but didn't get much of a look in his group. It was all good, because it was an incredible day and we left as winners!

Dolphin showing in the Puppy Stakes Sporting Group

After our Orlando show, we headed south to Goodland to spend a few days taking the dogs out on the boat to the beach. It was a wonderful 5 days, full of sunshine and calm waters. The weekend was busy, but the weekdays gave us the beaches pretty much to ourselves, which is perfect. Dolphin perfected his swimming skills, and I had the happiest time watching the joy my dogs felt while running on the beach and playing in the water. It was truly a wonderful vacation, and for a brief few moments I managed to forget all about the damn pandemic and all the worries that go along with it.

It was a great trip, but we headed home on Thursday and it is back to reality now. Ironically, Cadence leaves tomorrow for Florida as Darla will be doing the Florida circuits with her (and I will join them in Venice in a couple weeks). Today was my last chance to ride her. I brought my English saddle out...haven't used my saddle on a horse in several years. I rode her first in Darla's western work saddle. The ride was OK, Cadence was really fresh, and was working a bit against me a bunch but we worked through it. After about an hour, I brought her back in and changed to my English saddle. That's where things fell apart. The wheels came off the wagon, so to speak. She was not behaving well, and I for sure was NOT riding well. In fact, the longer we rode, the worse I got, until I finally had to call it quits. I am so out of shape, my skills appear to be very very rusty, and I am definitely not doing this horse justice. Makes me wonder if keeping her is the right thing for me, as I know I will be holding her back. I hate that I am older, busier, and just less capable than i was 10+ years ago. How did this happen?

So once again, I will head to Florida with almost zero expectations. I just don't want to look foolish. It's SO much easier to look foolish showing horses than it is dogs. I am going to work out my negativity, and just head back down to Florida in a couple weeks with the attitude that I will be there to enjoy the experience. Whuda thunk I would ever go down and show in the January Florida circuits? Crazy! This is definitely the best, most talented horse I have ever owned, and certainly the best trained (thank you Darla!). I just need to get myself up to her level to be worthy of showing her.

It's a white Christmas! No, I am not that excited, because a snowstorm of 7+ inches of snow means I cannot travel north to visit my family. This is the first Christmas ever spent away from my mom, and it was really depressing. The dogs enjoyed the day, though. It started snowing on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and kept it up until early afternoon of Christmas Day. Merry Christmas to me :-(

Today Pizza and I spent 3 1/2 hours at an agility seminar. I figured she was going to be a bit wild, because she has been pretty feral since we showed in Orlando. She was wild and enthusiastic, but did much better than I expected. She made a lot of baby dog mistakes, which is to be expected. We made some good progress, and I am really looking forward to our trial next weekend. We need to get our time done in "open purgatory" before getting to move on up, and I am in no rush. Totally enjoying the journey with her! She has become an absolute dream to train, whuda thunk it?

Today I had two agility lessons schedule - both Noodle and Pizza. It's time to get back to progressing an learning. Noodle went first today. She was super accurate, tons of drive, and really I can't find anything bad to say about her...totally awesome!

I worked on a lot of advanced stuff with Pizza. Aiming high, that's my motto! We worked a lot on serpentines, handling them on both sides and doing different things to see where she was in her training. Our collection recall still needs work. It took several repetitions before she really started collecting and turning without running into me.

We also worked on rear crosses. I have a bad habit of changing my directional arm too early - changing it before the jump rather than right after. I need to let my motion cue the turn and not rely on my arm. We also worked on weaves, and getting her to slow down as she approaches the weave entry. She tends to hit it way too fast, and then she ether bangs into the poles, or she can' control herself and pops out. If I remember to decelerate, it will get her to collect a bit before the weave entry and give us better accuracy. Definitely something to remember for our trial this weekend!

I also made a video for Pizza's Advanced Trick Dog test. She is ready to test for advanced, and AKC is allowing it to be done via video. It was a lot of fun training for this, because now that I have her learning style figured out we are having loads of success. Dolphin is probably ready to test for novice, but I want to get his CGC done first. All in the plans for 2021...already setting goals in my head!

It's New Year's Eve, finally! You know what that means - time to evaluate my goals and how I did this year. A year ago today I set myself some goals. I never would have dreamed the world would come to a grinding halt with a pandemic. Life today is SO different than it was a year ago, and yet in some ways it is the same. I'm still working towards my goals, but I think I have a much better appreciation for them now. Here's my goal recap:

What a good year, even in a pandemic. My dogs earned a total of 12 AKC titles this year. Heck, I didn't even have any goals for Dolphin because he wasn't even a possibility last December...and now he is a champion. Winning the NOHS and the puppy stakes in Orlando was such a pipe dream it wasn't even on the goal list. Now it is getting time to set my 2021 goals, so stay tuned...new training diary starts tomorrow!