Today was a rather frustrating day. I am working with Dolphin on his jumping skills. He is struggling because he just hasn't figured out how to control his big ol' body over the jumps. I am working on the "go" command and sending him ahead of me to take the jump. Well today in the yard he knocked about 90% of the jumps. Granted, I think he wasn't trying very hard. It's so hard to get my dogs to want to train on my own property. They do so much better away from home. However, Dolphin and I have a lot of work to do, and today really proved it. I videoed my training session and went back inside to watch the videos. When I slowed them down and analyzed his jumping, I can see that every knocked bar was different - some he took off too early and hit the bar with his belly, some he took off too late and hit it with his chest. This tells me it is just a lack of understanding how the timing works when taking off. This will come in time. I just need to gather all of my patience and keep on trudging along.

I had an interesting couple days of agility classes. Since Noodle is in season, Pizza got to do her class today, along with her regular class on Wednesday. She was fired up, but really really good. I am working hard on her focus on me while we are standing around waiting in between sequences. It does take a lot of extra work, and I cannot relax for a single second the entire hour, but I do feel we are making tiny steps forward. I remember what a long process this was with Noodle, and now I feel confident with her focus on me while we are waiting around. Sometimes I feel a little jealous of everyone else who can stand around and be social and not have to work so hard on their dogs....but I wouldn't trade mine for anything! I'll take the work, because in the end I am confident I will reap the rewards. It just may take a bit longer for me than everyone else.

Interestingly, on Wednesday Dolphin only knocked two bars during the entire class. That's pretty darn good! He knocked a few more today in class, but in his defense we were doing much more difficult skills - the bend recall - which requires a lot of collection (and is REALLY had for a big dog like him). I am realizing that we are making progress...it is happening! I have to stop looking to far ahead into the future and just focus on each step we are taking, one day at a time.

Noodle got the weekend off since she is in season, so today was all about Pizza. She warmed up well, and laid down a be-yoo-tiful Open Jumpers run, but knocked a bar towards the end. In watching the video, it appears it was just a slight mistake on her part where she took off a little bit too early and nicked the jump. However, she was super slow in the weaves and I have no idea why. Normally she flies through them.

Open Standard went nice and smooth for a clean run and a Q. Once again she was really really slow in the weaves. She also got "stuck" on her A-Frame and Dogwalk contacts, where she stayed in her 2 on 2 off position and was really distracted looking at the judge. On both obstacles I had to call her name several times before she would release. However, she did everything correctly without any refusals and the bars all stayed up, so I will take that! Just weird how slow she was in the weaves. Yesterday in training she was super fast as always, so who knows? I guess I will see how she does tomorrow.

I should learn not to be optimistic, because every time I am, my plans and expectations crash and burn.

The agility trial today with Pizza was a crash and burn. First class was Open FAST. She ignored me and failed the send bonus, so that was a big fat NQ. Next was Open Standard. Since I don't need any more open standard Q's, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and try a blind cross, which I never do with Pizza. Yeah, that was a big fail as she didn't read it, went on the wrong side of me, then caught sight of Mark videoing by the end gate and ran over to him...then sniffed all over the leash runner. So that was another big fat NQ. Last was Open Jumpers. We have zero qualifying runs in Open Jumpers. Today that number remains the same. She started off pretty good (although like in the previous class, I had to call to her several times to get her to release from the start line). She knocked a bar on the way to the tunnel, which is an automatic NQ, but then the weirdness happened. She came out of the tunnel about 34 feet, then immediately turned around and ran behind the tunnel, investigating the bar setter. She would not leave the bar setter alone, was sniffing her pockets obsessively. I finally got her away, and then Pizza went sniffing the ground, ignoring me. I decided the fun was over, and took her by the collar and led her out of the ring.

I have no idea what had gotten into her today. Stress? She didn't seem stressy at all, seemed really happy when we were warming up outside the ring. I really don't know, and this is yet another one of those times where I just shrug my shoulders and remain clueless. I hate that...I like to have reasons so I can formulate a plan. I like having a plan.

This weekend Pizza and I headed to Oberlin for a dog show. The dog show ended up being really irrelevant to me. Pizza picked up select on Saturday, and OHBOB both days, but that was about it.

I spent Saturday evening at my mom's, going through my mom's things with my sisters. I thought I had been doing really well coping with my mom's death. I was sorely mistaken. Today really shook me to the core. Going through her clothes, her personal things, it was so hard. What hit me the hardest was going through all of the bins of her holiday decorations that she made. She would decorate for EVERY holiday, not just Christmas, but even St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, Valentine's Day, you name it. Over the decades she had painstakingly crafted lots of house decorations for each holiday, and stored them in bins. I don't decorate my house at ALL (having Weims makes decorations nearly impossible to keep safe). No one else wanted most of the stuff. My heart shattered in the realization that her 0+ years of crafting is probably going to end up in the trash. I just can't bear it.

This really hits me hard. All of this STUFF we all have, it is so unimportant. It's all going to go in the garbage when I die, because I have no children to pass things on. All of this stuff, these dogs shows, everything seems so pointless when you look at the grand scheme of things. I feel so irrelevant. It's a terrible feeling, and once again those awful panic attacks starting coming. Thank goodness Mark was able to talk me all the way home on the phone when I left on Sunday. He truly keeps me grounded and sane. A lot of my fear is dealing with the thought that someday I will lose him, and I can't bear it. Everything suddenly seems so temporary.

Today I headed over to my friend's agility building to do a quick training session with Dolphin. He did really well! He knocked a few bars, but the majority of them stayed up, and he didn't fall off the dog walk (unlike last week where he fell off TWICE!). I was really pleased with how he trained today. It felt good to do some agility with my pup. Sometimes dogs can be the greatest healers.

I woke up at 3am, headed to the airport and flew to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the NSBA World Championship show. Yeah, heading to a big show like this when I haven't shown Cadence since January...crazy me!

I have been pretty quiet about my goals and dreams for Cadence. Maybe I don't feel very confident or overly optimistic, but mostly I just cannot let myself think too much about it or get too ambitious. Damn horses have broken my heart too many times to count, so I am trying to stay more neutral in my feelings about competing.

Cadence has been on the road for the past few weeks, and this week she has spent a lot of time with a pony rider, getting ponied in the crowds. Apparently she was horrible the first day she was ponied, but each day she got better and better until she finally gave up and accepted it and went along nicely. This was huge, because working in crowds has been her nemesis. She is finally learning that she can bump around next to other horses and have others in her space without anything bad happening. She absolutely HAS to get used to this, because this is her life! I can't always ride her in a totally empty arena.

I didn't get to ride her today, but I watched Darla ride her late tonight in the show ring and she looked really good. Definite progress from the last show (Findlay) that ended up such a disaster. Darla shows her tomorrow, and then my day is Sunday.

Finally it was show day for Cadence. Darla showed her today in a big big class of 3 year olds. Cadence looked great, but didn't get a placement. She is not quite as robo-broke as a lot of the other horses. We are on the slow training plan, and I am good with that! The best part about today was that she handled the crowds with NO problem. That is a huge win for us!

I rode Cadence this evening once the show was over. It was good and bad. The good: She handled LOTS of traffic going in every direction without issue...HUGE win for us. The bad: ME, all ME. I could not find my rhythm, just could NOT get in sync with her. I struggled with our canter transitions, both directions. I felt like I was really having an off day, it felt completely my issue and not hers. This of course makes me angrier...I can forgive Cadence for her issues but NOT MYSELF...NO EXCUSE! I have been showing for 33 years...YES 33 YEARS. Time to get my $%#! together!

Darla and I decided it was in my best interest to skip my first class this morning, as it was a jam packed class with 24 horses in it. My Novice 50 & Over class was smaller and more manageable.

Cadence had a ponying session about 90 minutes before my class, and that went well. When it was time for my class, i waited until the last minute to get on and enter the warm-up ring, hoping to not have to spend much time in the crowded area. Yeah...good plan, except that they then decided to take 20+ minutes to drag the show ring. I am pretty proud of how Cadence handled the mass of horses all around her. I mostly walked the whole time, and waited until half the class had entered the ring before trotting. I went to trot in, and the horse in front of me spooked at the entrance gate and went sideways, so we bypassed it and stayed in the makeup ring. This meant we ended up being the last horse to enter the ring...not ideal in regards to getting noticed, but my main focus today was just to have a clean ride and play it safe

All in all it was a pretty decent ride! I had a slight break at the canter first direction - I luckily was able to correct it quickly, but two of the judges caught it. At the end of the class, we ended up placing 3rd under two judges, and 10th under the other two. I guess we know which judges saw me break! When they called out the overall placement, we ended up 6th, and I was thrilled with that. After only getting to show her ONCE (and that was back in January), getting 6th in this tough group was a pretty good accomplishment. The best part - our ride(other than the slight break) was clean! Our canter transitions were awful, but I got them done, and that was my biggest goal. I am going to have to work HARD on those before Congress.

So all in all my Tulsa trip was a successful one. These things never turn out quite the way you hope, which is why I try to keep my hope to a minimum. Less disappointment, I guess!

Yesterday Dolphin and I went to a show by ourselves, mainly for training. He did ok, but not great. It was horribly hot, so he lost a bit of enthusiasm. He did not like the judge reaching for his head...an ongoing problem we are working on. But overall he was good, and let me tell you he is a pure pleasure to take to shows. He doesn't care about the people, the crowds, the other dogs, he is just easy-going and happy. It is so stress-free to take him places because of his good personality.

Today I took all three dogs over to train a bit of agility. Even through the building was air-conditioned, the extreme heat and humidity outside made it a short work session for all of them. I worked on Dolphin's jumping skills and his weaves. The weaves are coming along great...WHEN he enters them correctly. Approaching them with any sort of speed is complete failure, he is just not ready to blast the weaves from the beginning. However, he is blasting through them once he gets going, and I LOVE it!

Pizza pooped out really fast. We got a little bit of work done on everything and had to quit. Of course my workhorse Noodle lasted the longest. I worked on threadles, backsides, tunnel bypasses, sending to the weaves from a distance, all things she is getting really good at. She is a true joy to run now...whuda thunk it? Looking back a few years ago, I would have never predicted this would be the case. Just goes to show - never give up!