Day 21 -- 1st Agility Trial (Camp Bandy)

Today Jedi got to attend his first agility trial! I'm not going to attempt any hotel stays until he is good and solid in his house training, so we'll be limited to locations that we can drive to and from the same day. Camp Bandy, at two hours away, is one such location, so that's where we were off to today!

We got to bed last night a little after 9:00, and thankfully Jedi was tired enough from our park excursion that he was ready to crash by then. The alarm went off this morning at 4:30, which is something I will ONLY do for agility trials. My goal was to be on the road by 5:30 and I wanted to be sure to give Jedi time to empty himself. I also have to take into consideration that I still don't feed him any meals out of the bowl, so if I intended to keep up the streak I was going to have to give myself additional time to give him a training session. At 4:30 in the morning. And yes, we did it!

For the trip over to the trial I had Jedi in one of the big crates by himself and opted to put the Klee Kai together (I only have 3 large crates in the back of the van, so with 4 dogs someone has to share). Jedi pretty much went back to sleep when we left, but woke up after about an hour. This is when I realized that I had failed to throw any sort of "puppy enrichment" into the crate for him. I realized this because he was finding his own, by chewing on the plastic water dish attached to the crate. Thankfully this didn't last terribly wrong and he didn't do any damage before he went back to sleep for the rest of the ride.

We arrived at the trial site right at 7:30, so I had what I consider plenty of time (yes, the trial started at 8:00, and yes, I absolutely am one of those people who rolls in at the last possible minute). I got Jedi out right away to let him go potty, then he came inside with me to grab stickers and course maps. He wasn't afraid of a darn thing except for the big glass entry door -- I think it's because it squeaked and made a noise like my teeter. My teeter is the only thing I've seen him be afraid of so far. When one of my other dogs goes over it Jedi runs for the hills. Not sure what that's all about, but that's what I figured was going on with the door. I ended up just picking him up and carrying him through it the rest of the day and he didn't have any problems with that.

I had plenty of down time between running Kizzy and Secret today, so that's when Jedi got to come inside for his socializing. He got to meet lots of new people today (because everyone pretty much goes nuts when you bring a fuzzy puppy to an agility trial) and a few dogs as well. Someone at the trial had a 17 week old female border collie puppy, so we let the two puppies play for a bit while Standard was running. We were inside and they were both on leash so it was nothing nuts, but they were very cute and appropriate with each other. Jedi wasn't sure of her at first, but warmed up quickly. I can't wait for next weekend when he gets to see his brother, Pyro!

We sat and watched some agility together for a bit. At first Jedi was completely oblivious to anything in the ring, but then a barky dog ran and he snapped to attention. He started to bark at the dog in the ring, but his attention was easily diverted with his toy. This happened a few more times, but each time I was able to redirect him to the toy. This will definitely be something that we continue to work on -- it's okay to get excited, you just need to learn to express it appropriately.

We spent a bit of time exploring the grounds outside as well. There are all sorts of animals on this property, including sheep, horses, chickens, and a couple of peacocks that scream bloody murder every 5 seconds. I'm really surprised that none of my dogs react to that noise. Jedi wasn't too sure of what was going on in the critter pen and didn't really feel the need to get too close to investigate. Later in the day one of the chickens was out of the pen, though, and he did find that a bit more interesting.

Our runs were done right around noon. I had planned ahead and figured on doing Jedi's lunch training session at the trial. I brought our touch target (small lid), a bowl for pivoting, and the FitPaws bone. I took Jedi and Secret to a grassy spot at the back of the parking lot. There were a couple of RVs parked back there, but not much else going on. Most of our training sessions have been in the basement with a few done outside when the weather cooperates, so it was nice to have the chance to work in this entirely new location. Jedi did really well and was able to do frog, pretty, back up, and bottom. This was also his first session having Secret around as a distraction but she pretty much stayed out of the way (except for helping when Jedi staged a protest about doing bottom, so she did it instead).

The ride home was a little more eventful. I brought the small crate and planned on having Kizzy ride up front on the way home (separating them with the pig ears), but as I was setting it up Jedi kept insisting on going in it. Okay, he still fits, why not. Oh my goodness, the complaining he did! He was over the bed, he was under the bed. Upside down, circling, and somersaulting. At one point I stopped the van and got him out thinking he surely had a bathroom emergency, but nope, just complaining. Truth be told, I think he was saying he was absolutely dying of thirst, because if one of the dogs in the back got a drink then he really screamed.

Really, though, the fits came in short bursts and then he'd go back to sleep. I think he was just REALLY tired from all of the activity today and expressed it like an overtired toddler. When we got home there was quite a bit of crazy running around (and oh, pretty sure he drank half a gallon of water). Secret really had a hair up her butt and wanted to play, so I finally locked the dog door so that Kizzy wouldn't butt in. Secret tried really, really hard to get Jedi to play her chase games, but she's still a bit much for him. He'd do a short dash into the yard or under the deck, but then go back under the agility table and bark at her. I imagine they'll have quite a lot of fun running around once he gets a bit bigger.

And while this is Jedi's blog, Secret gets a brag today! Congrats to Secret on finishing her second MACH! She needed 16 points going into the trial today, but with JWW running first I knew there was no way she'd get it on the first run. She ran clean and got 1st place this morning with 9 points, so we just had to run clean in Std to finish it up. It was nice of her to make it easier to do the math, as if she wouldn't have Q'd in JWW this morning I probably would have had to wait until the results were posted to make sure she had enough points. This way we could celebrate when we finished the run, much as Secret hates those victory laps. Good girl, Secret!