A big few days! Milestones for Chace and Deo

So last weekend I had a crazy few days. At the end of the school term I don't usually enter shows, as I know how physically and emotionally exhausted I tend to be. This never bodes well for successful competition. However some friends convinced me to enter the Wanganui agility show, and one of them drove me and all the dogs so I didn't have to worry about driving.

There were two main reasons for deciding to go (other than awesome friends). These were that I had entered Chace, and had planned for it to be her last show before retiring from agility competition. The second was that I've been chasing the one final agility challenge that Deo needed for champion!

Chace has taught me just so much as a dog trainer. About stress, about fitness, about dog reactivity, and about doing what's best for your dog. I'm so proud that she has gone from a chronically anxious stressy dog to a much happier and much less anxious dog. I'm very proud of her multiple champion titles, and that I am able to retire her at her happiest and fittest. Her best run of the weekend didn't place, but her time was great and amongst excellent dogs.

Here's her best run of the weekend:

I'm a big believer in not running dogs that are physically or mentally not able to cope. And I learnt this with Chace. I got her as my 'serious agility dog' and in the beginning competed her when I shouldn't have, as she was just to stressed. As I learnt more and recognized this I began to only enter her sporadically, and scratch her from any run I thought she couldn't cope with. I also had been tapering off her entries and runs even more over the last year in preparation for retirement from agility competition so that she didn't suddenly go from competing lots, to not at all.

Of course, she will still continue with all the different types of training and fitness work that we do, her hydrotherapy, and try to progress her nosework.  Because it's great to keep her working and active, and she loves it!

I'm also extremely proud to let you know that in this same weekend Deo got the final win that he needed to become an agility champion! Contacts have forever been our nemesis as he is a very food motivated dog, and it has been difficult to translate the perfect training contact to anything that resembles a good contact in the ring. This will forever be a work in progress for us, but I'm so pleased to have made progress.

Deo's winning senior run (no video, unfortunately!)

In New Zealand when you make up a huge title like champion then the tradition is a wetting. This means buckets, being dragged into puddles, or into a stream. I know it's weird, but it's just a part of it! Of course it was a freezing cold weekend, but that didn't stop my friends from finding the fire hose and dousing me.  They did make it up to me by a great (and entertaining) Thai dinner later that night after I had warmed up.

And.... then a new addition to the Hybrid Training team was picked up on Monday! But more on that soon.....