MANY UPDATES

When did I last update this thing? I have no idea.

What has happened in the meantime:
Next to nothing. We had another agility trial hosted by the same club as the one I previously posted about, and it only solidified my decision to never, ever, ever go to a trial hosted by this club again. It was terrible. I saw things on the Novice Jumpers course that no judge in their right mind should have had in a novice course. It was just terrible. If that were my first trial I would have thought "This s**t is too hard" and quit agility forever. Really. Some challenges are necessary, I agree, but when there are things that make a course flat out DANGEROUS - no matter if it's Novice, Open, or Excellent - there's a real problem.

We have received our official jump height card and I am not happy with the measurement. I have heard rumors that you can no longer challenge, but don't know if this is true. If it's not true and you can still challenge, you better believe I'm challenging.
Regardless, we have been practicing with jump heights at 16 in the meantime, and we're doing pretty good. I'm very happy with the clearance Auggie's been giving me.
I have not been doing a lot more work in the jumping program, because the weather has been disgusting - rain 5-6 days a week, and one sunny day that is usually insufferably hot; that one sunny day we have been taking advantage of to scoot off to Auggie's breeder's house for agility practice, so the jumping chute on the same day would be too much for him, IMHO. I am hoping the weather improves, and I think I may actually start the program completely over again using 16 inch jump heights.

Meanwhile, the agility trial I went to also offered rally, so I went ahead and entered rally both days. We didn't place the first day, and got second the second day (some other guy beat our time by a second or two, and also Auggie kept trying to high-five me instead of down, so I'm pretty sure that is what happened with our score, LOL.)
Regardless of placing, we did Q both days - so Auggie now has his RN. Hurray Auggie!

This coming weekend we are doing a little indoor trial. We are two legs away from our NA and two away from our OAJ, so if he has a stellar weekend... well, I will just pee my pants with joy. I'm hoping to at least come away with one Q each after the weekend is over and done with.

I haven't been doing our Natural Jumping program. I got thrown off with bad weather, an intense summer course, and a vacation. I'm unsure now if I want to actually start back over at week 1 at 16 inch jump heights and let him work through it, or what I want to do. Being unsure of where to start again is holding us back for sure. I think I will see how this weekend goes, and then maybe get started again next week.

Auggie has started DOGGIE DAYCARE as of last Wednesday. He's doing really well. Hopefully I will be able to get some pics in the coming weeks and post some cute Auggie-playing-with-other-dogs photos. =>


Uhhhh I think that's it. I'll try to remember to update this thing more often.

Rally-O/Auggie's Birthday Part 1

This is me at Rally-O:

"A DOWN?? Nobody told me he had to do a DOWN!!"

I don't know WHY it never occured to me he would have to do a down. We hadn't been working on that, and certainly not working on it with him at my side (usually he does his sits and downs in front of me, not next to me in heel.)
Oops!!!

Our score was 90, time was 2:16 because we spent probably 20 seconds trying to go from a sit to a down - hahahahahaha! Oh God it was hilarious. And also, there were times when Auggie barked in my face. Rally-O was a LOT different to him than agility. He got out there and thought it was time to go... and then it wasn't. I think he was kind of confused. "Hey Mom... aren't I supposed to, like, go over some jumps and run through a tunnel or something?"
But when we crossed the finish line you'd have thought we just won the Olympics or something. I made a HUGE deal out of it and Auggie got super excited. That was the whole point, really: go out there and have some fun, work together, no pressure, and act like he'd just done the best thing ever.


We went out afterwards for the qualifying ribbon presentation, and I thought we'd be getting a Q ribbon - and suddenly he was calling my number for fourth place. "Wait... what? OH!! That's US!" I told Auggie. The judge was really nice, shook my hand, and then we got our ribbons, a rope bone, and a cookie treat. Auggie tried to eat the ribbons out of my hand, haha. He then got a HUGE chomp off his cookie treat, we packed up, and took off. Crate space was very limited so I thought we'd go home and give some other people some room.


Not bad for a bratty little birthday puppy.

Auggie's Big Day

Saturday is Auggie's big day.
First, we are off to our first Rally-O trial. I have NO idea how that's going to go. It might be short of hilarity.

Second, we are getting pro pics done for the second time.

Third...
IT'S AUGGIE'S THIRD BIRTHDAY!!!


I can't believe my little guy is almost three.
He's going to get a very special birthday cake... if I can just decide what recipie to use.