Tuesday, May 26, 2009

MONDAYS NADAC JUMPERS with Moose, a run I really feel good about...even though we did not Q

First run of the day I got to do was with Alicia's corgi Moose. Moose is fast, and he is such a fun little guy to run with. Moose was my first fast dog I got to run with and he taught me a lot, but I have not got to run with Moose much lately. So I was walking by the ring when they were walking the Elite Jumpers course and Alicia was getting ready to run with Moose. I was really hot and they had already been walking the course, and it is an elite course but Alicia asked if I wanted to run Moose. I went to check the course and it was a challenge to remember. One of those courses where you have to go around several of the same jumps a few times but each time head a little bit of a different way, and there was a tunnel with an entry the dogs saw several times and were not supposed to take it. So I was not really feeling very good about remembering the course so I wanted to wimp out and tell Alicia to run it, but I thought I need to buck up and push my limits a little more. Moose was up first or second, so ....I was just got my emotions in check and tried to concentrate on the job at hand. When we got to the line Moose would not lie down and stay. He kept creeping ahead and just acting like he was ignoring me (it was the weekend for start line issues for me, LOL). So Alicia had said I would need to be firm but I think her idea of firm is different from mine--I have worked with very soft dogs, so I am sure I was saying a please could you go down type of command-I don't want to hurt your feelings Moose, LOL. Moose was not intimidated by me. I finally felt like I had been out of there forever so I made a quick mental calculation thinking what happens if we just start going, and figured I was screwed because there was a long line of fast jumps to start us out and at the end there was the big mouth of the tunnel that I would have to be there to handle it. I finally just told Moose to stay and walked a few steps and I knew we were going. LOL, you gotta love that feeling. So Moose was way too close to the jump so he knocked the first bar, but WOW, we did the rest of the course like clock work. It was weird because like the places I needed to stop, and to decelerate it just clicked, stop now!!! I am famous for using the wrong words and I have not worked with Moose and his word for a turn with a lead change is SWITCH, and I even got that right word out, it just popped into my head at the right moment. All weekend I used directionals and even got them right except for once. I wish I had not knocked that first bar because it was one of those runs that just felt sooo good. That was a run I was really proud of because it wasn't just an easy run, I did not have a lot of time to remember it, I felt really good about it, and I was not sure I could pull that one off. It is so much fun to run with an experienced dog that really knows there job, Moose is such a good boy.

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