Valentine's Day Triumphs!

Well, what a fabulous day we had yesterday! We had our first Agility show of the year, the UKA Valentine's show in Cheltenham, and what a great day it turned out to be in the end! I have to confess to setting off in the morning with some trepidation - Finn's problems have been getting worse and worse lately, and he is now chronically stressed and anxious, and over-reacts to every little change in his environment, people, dogs, noises etc. etc., to the point where even something as simple as going for a walk or out into the garden causes a huge amount of anxiety, so I really wasn't sure how he would cope or if I'd be able to trust him enough to let him off lead to do his classes. And Willow has lost a huge amount of confidence in agility over the past 6 months, and we hadn't jumped her over the Standard height jumps for quite a while as we'd been training her over Medium height to try and get her confidence back up, so we weren't really sure how she would cope with the higher jumps. So we really weren't expecting much from either of our two as we set off in the morning!

We had 3 Beginners Steeplechase classes to run during the morning (what a fab little show! I love the Steeplechase classes!), and the first one was up for walking when we got there. It wasn't the most straight-forward course ever put up, and the last line of jumps provided some interesting handling points, and while watching the Maxi dogs run it became clear that it was actually the slower, steadier dog that this course favoured as the fastest dogs just couldn't get the last line right. The Standard height class started, and Willow stepped up for her go. Her first run of the day is never her best, so mum decided to take in a ball and play train the round, but Willow had other ideas and set off pretty confidently, just stopping for a quick 'displacement behaviour' sniff once on her way around, but otherwise flying over the jumps with great ease! Definitely better than expected, and a good start to the day! I waited til the very end of the class to run Finn, queueing with him out of the way and waiting for a lot of the dogs to clear away before stepping up with him. I don't think I've ever felt so concerned about a run before in my life as I really wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep it together long enough to get around the course and safely back on a lead without reacting to any of the other dogs, and was concerned that one incident would end his competitive agility career, but I should have had more faith in him! He was calm and composed, and remained so all the way around the course! He left all the jumps up for the first time ever, and we got our first ever Clear Round! It certainly wasn't his fastest run ever, and it wasn't his smoothest - we lost a bit of time doing a couple of twiddles before jumps - but the queueing routine I adopted, the training we've been doing lately with food instead of toys to keep the arousal levels down, and all the Susan Salo Jump Grid work we've been doing to improve his jump technique all came together and resulted in our calmest and cleanest run to date! And I was even more delighted when it transpired he got 4th place in the class and we had a beautiful rosette to take home!

Class 2 was a more flowing course, and again Willow went first and ran beautifully, just popping over the wrong jump going across a box, but again her confidence was high so we were pleased. And I waited right til the end again to run Finn, and again he was amazingly calm and controlled, and just clipped one jump on an otherwise flawless round!

And so to Class 3, another lovely flowing course, and this time Willow set off beautifully, and got around it Clear!! Mum was delighted at the prospect of going home with another Clear Round rosette, and we were pretty elated with the day! Finn did another calm and composed round, again just clipping a few jumps, but handling like a dream. We then had to wait around for the prize giving for the class to get Willow's rosette, and were even more elated to discover that she got 2nd place! And when we got back to the car and looked in her record book, it transpired that the 2nd had now given her enough points to move up to Novice in the Steeplechase program! Cue much delight and bemusement!

So all in all it was a pretty good day! Finn proved that he can still cope with the agility at the shows if we make sure we have a calm queueing routine and manage the situation properly, and that the new training reward system of food instead of toys definitely results in calmer performances even if we have lost a little bit of his speed (but we can always put that back in once he's learnt to control himself and his body properly), and that lots of Jump Grid work is improving his technique. And Willow proved that she can compete confidently and does enjoy agility (despite appearances in the photo below!), and only got better throughout the day! So here's to a good year of competing in 2010!!