Day 49 - NADAC Trial (Rochester)

Today Jedi went to his third agility trial. The first two were AKC trials at the same location (Camp Bandy) and we were done before noon (the Masters classes, at least). A NADAC trial is a bit different beast, taking up much of the day and involving a lot of in/out/in/out. Additionally, partly because of the weather and partly because of Luke, I was opting to crate inside at the trial today. So, lots of new stuff for Jedi to take in!

We got up at 5:30, which isn't too bad for driving over the morning of a trial. I spent the majority of Jedi's breakfast on pivoting to the leg. He's still pretty stuck on the target, especially on my left, so I'm putting a little extra effort into getting us over this hump. We finished up the last bit of food with putting stuff into the bowl. The super fun part of all of this was the discovery of ants crawling all over my training mats. Teeny tiny ants. Great. I put Jedi upstairs when we were done and sprayed the heck out of the edges of the room/windows with bug killer. Hopefully that does something, but we might be avoiding the basement for a few days while that dissipates.

We got on the road at 6:30 and it was a pretty quiet ride. Jedi was pretty patient as I made several trips back and forth to get things set up inside. I took Luke and Kaiser in first and debated just letting Jedi wait in the van until after our first run, but I ended up having time to run out to get him and let him go potty.

I got Jedi set up in his crate (we were way back behind the arena almost by ourselves, so it was pretty secluded) and took Kaiser out for his run. I heard some barking while I had Kaiser out, but it wasn't too bad. When we came back, though, Jedi was screaming bloody murder and would NOT stop. I was waiting him out, needing a quiet moment before I opened the door, when someone poked their head around and said the judge was saying it needed to stop. I'm like really, I'm supposed to reward this behavior? Thankfully the appearance of this person stopped Jedi momentarily and I was able to get him out.

After I took all of the dogs outside again I put Luke and Kaiser in the x-pen and took Jedi into the arena for some play time. With that little crate display, I figured he needed to run some ya-yas out. I attached the long line to him for safety, just in case he suddenly noticed the other dogs. There was no need to worry about that, he was completely fixated on playing. We did lots of restrained fetching and racing with the holee roller, and then spent a good bit of time just tugging and asking for tricks with the fuzzy ring. We did this through the Open class, since I didn't have to work until Novice. I took Jedi outside again before putting him in his crate. He barked as I walked away, but then remained quiet.

Because of our experience after Kaiser's first run, I opted to put Jedi in the van for each subsequent run of the day. He still got plenty of indoor time because I retrieved him after each run -- and he pretty much barked every time I left but then quieted down. The good news is that he only got so excited that he screamed one more time when I returned. After that he just wiggled but was able to contain his vocal excitement.

I was able to feed Jedi his lunch during a course building break (so I could use his clicker). I took him into the arena and we worked on pivoting with the food lid. He did really well and wasn't distracted at all. He continues to improve on both sides. If I don't respond when he's on my left he will start to back in a circle around me. I clicked for that, mostly because that's a trick I have no idea how to teach so if he's going to offer it I'm going to take it.

Once he finished eating we sat down to play tug and do some "set point" jumping over my legs. After that a friend brought her dog over to say hello. She was curious at first, but then I think she thought Jedi was weird and that was the end of that. Jedi also got to meet a sheltie puppy today who is less than a week older than him (born 2/9 vs his 2/14). This was one big sheltie puppy, as he was considerably bigger than Jedi! I don't think Jedi is going to be a small border collie, so I'm thinking that's going to be an oversized sheltie. They were pretty cute together -- Unfortunately we were both running or working most of the day so they didn't get a lot of play time together.

We didn't leave the show until about 4:30, and they weren't done running yet. Our ride home wasn't as quiet as usual, because Jedi dropped what was left of his pig ear in the water dish and got it lodged in there. He probably spent about a half hour trying to get it out before he finally succeeded. Once he finished up that piece he started gnawing on the water dish/crate bars again. I nearly slammed my brakes on the interstate when he started screaming. He got his teeth stuck on the crate bars, I think. Before I could pull off the road, though, he freed himself. I had to stop for gas about a half hour from home and after that he finally crashed.

Kizzy stayed home today, so since we got home she and Jedi have pretty much been going bonkers together. The only break was when we had dinner -- I took Jedi outside where he started offering pivoting on the upturned bucket I had out there, and then we spent the last of his dinner doing some slams. A bit ago I heard him making very strange sounds and went out to find him playing in the water bucket. I dumped the pools out (and didn't refill them) tonight, so I guess that's what I get.