Ambivalence at the trial

am·biv·a·lence
–noun

1.	uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.

I was afflicted by the above tonight. Our last trial of the year - Dobe Club ran it. I wanted to do well and be competitive but at the same time this air of indifference came over me causing me to handle in a rather lacklustre fashion. Bad handler. I don't know what I was thinking. In Masters Jumping Cypher knocked the first bar.....grrrr. We finished the course anyway - and he listened well. He kept that up for his Open Agility run - ran clear with 6th place. In Masters Agility he was away with the fairies. He missed a dogwalk contact - shock horror! First one in what feels like forever! That was the first sign of neural disengagement, the second sign was he pulled out the second last pole of the weavers. Third sign - heading towards the tunnel, I signal tunnel with arm, body and mouth, he heads all the way to the entry and then decides I must have been bluffing, turns around and comes with me. Weirdo. In Open Jumping I was the weirdo - he's going the right way, I'm squinting at this number next to a tunnel thinking perhaps I'd walked the course wrong so I call him off only to realise that in actual fact we were going the right way. He was a good kid though, kept all his bars up and did as I asked.

Raven...well she had fun tonight as did I when I ran her. Open Agility she received a very generous clear but came in 11th (gives you an idea of how generous it was), Masters Jumping I did that thing where I play peekaboo with a jump. As in 'get in close around me on a post turn but SURPRISE! There's jump for you there Raven!' She knocked it, we kept going, she kept the rest of her bars up and I had a ball working her distance skills. In Masters Agility it was all good until I'd neglected to tell her about a turn coming up after she'd accelerated into a nice shallow bend line of jumps. Ahh well she had fun and I enjoyed the run. She knocked one bar after I relaxed my handling a bit. Who am I kidding - my handling has pretty much been in relaxed status all night! Then in Open Jumping I did what I lecture all my students not to do - took my eye off my dog for half a nano second. Hence we did a lovely run on this course with two extra jumps in it for fun. She and I both decided the course needed more obstacles.

And that, as they say, is that for 2007. No more trials now till the end of January. Lots of training to do...and I really have to work on putting some condition on them. I have been slack with their exercise regime. But yay - that's what holidays are for.

PS Saw this tonight (someone emailed me the link) pretty fascinating what Orcas can do. Read here after watching all the way through to the end.