Friday, June 3, 2016

Day 55 - AKC Trial, Day 1

Today was the first of a 3-day weekend of AKC agility, so it will be Jedi's longest trial weekend yet. It's also going to be his first weekend spent inside at the trial, as the whether isn't looking good for crating out of the van (today was too warm and the van was parked on the street, so I couldn't keep it wide open). Today was our latest start of the three days, since Time 2 Beat and Premier JWW were running first. We left for Middleton at 7:00, after doing leg pivots outside for breakfast. This is our second of five trips to Middleton in the span of a week...

Everyone traveled well this morning. They were all eager to get going and I had to keep kicking them out of the van as I got it loaded. Jedi surprised me when he suddenly appeared in the big crate in the back. That's a pretty big jump, I didn't know he was capable of that yet! Sorry little dude, until you outgrow Secret, that's her spot. (And hopefully that never happens!)

I got a decent parking spot at least, but we were kind of screwed for crating since I rolled in so late. There were no spots available on any edges/walls, mostly thanks to all of the selfish people who spread their crap out and take up space needlessly. That meant that I had to set up in one of the middle rows. This is more concerning for Kizzy -- I stuck her crate in the center and hoped for the best. I also brought in the blankets from the van to help cover the back of the crates, knowing that she pulls them in and it was likely hopeless.

Overall everyone did well inside today. Jedi was slightly obnoxious first thing. I think I had Kaiser out of the crate and Jedi started barking. I told him to hush and he got even louder -- he is so sassy. He looks me straight in the eye and screams. Well fine, then, you don't get to look at me. I pulled the poster board screen in front of the crate so he couldn't see us anymore and he was quiet. That was really the only episode of the day where he barked. He did really well, including when I took dogs out to run!

Around mid-morning I took Jedi across the street to the big open field. There were two other dogs playing fetch over there -- One had a squeaky toy and I wondered if I would lose Jedi to that, but once I showed him his ball he was game on. He got in lots of running before we went back in. I made sure to practice waits/releases to the toy and Jedi did really well, he's really starting to make the connection.

For lunch I just asked for paw touches, but Jedi was offering side legs and pee trick on the cooler so we did a lot of that. I made sure to move the cooler back and forth to work both sides and we were able to get pee trick on the left side today! After he ate I took Jedi over to the measuring table to try to get a height on him. I wasn't having a lot of luck on my own, so thankfully someone took pity and helped me out. Jedi was skittish about the measuring arm at first, but he quickly got over it and we were able to get a fairly trustworthy measurement of 14.75". I think tomorrow we might go eat lunch on the measuring table with the arm moving around and over him.

Jedi had a very quiet afternoon in the crate and was sleeping most of the times I looked in on him. Hopefully this trend continues the rest of the weekend. We had a quiet drive home, and Jedi lived with the fact that there wasn't a water dish in his crate. We just beat the rain home, but had to do dinner inside tonight because it started up shortly after we got home. We worked on putting various kitchen utensils into the bowl, and then finished up with 4-in using the same bowl. As Jedi gets bigger it's getting a little harder!

Everyone is pretty tired and nobody really wants to play with Jedi tonight. Hopefully that means he, too, will settle down and crash soon.  :o)

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