USDAA in Corvallis hosted by WAG. It was actually a pretty small trial, I was surprised.
Didn’t matter because Twitch was terrible. I don’t know if it was a culmination of progressively getting worse over the last few weeks or if it was new things I was trying.
The new thing was trying to use a tug toy to get him jazzed. Didn’t work. He just got more and more worried with this attitude of what the hell are you doing mom? I tried to get and keep his attention as we entered the ring but he was nervous about the people in the stands and the people at the score table.
His first run on Sat was Standard. He ran past obstacles several times. He didn’t do the weaves. He jumped onto the teeter from the side and then off again. He skipped the dog walk completely. It was a train wreck.
The second run was Gamblers. The gamble was doable but he ran pat the second obstacle which was a tunnel. He then wouldn’t get on the teeter. He ran into the tunnel over a jump and then past the tunnel opening of the gamble to look at the person sitting in a chair. Grrr.
In Snooker he was actually following along well but missed the 3 jump in the closing so I sent him into the next obstacle, the 4 tunnel and out of the ring. So, better.
Jumpers we actually finished the course but he ran past 2 obstacles.
So he got better as the day went on, as I reverted to previous tactics before runs and stopped fixing things. I also didn’t try to film Shelby’s runs with Cricket. I was trying to do that because she was two dogs ahead of us with a jump height change. I think that was a bad idea. Twitch just got worked up about the people in the ring and the noise of the stands.
I did take him around inside a couple times and did some trick work with him. I think that helped.
We headed back on Sunday and Standard was first. He did well until the Aframe. He ran past it 3 times! 3 effing times! Ugh. Then he finally did it and over the second to last jump where he just ran out of the ring. Completely. Grr…
After that I wasn’t interested in trying Pairs with a strange dog and didn’t want to stick around for Snooker, so we left.
We have CPE in Turner this weekend. No fixing things and we will see how we do.