The Fun Match was FUN!

On Sunday I did something I rarely ever get a chance to do and that was go to a fun match. I took SoBe, Wally and Maze and we had a great time! 

This was my opportunity to get SoBe on contact equipment and weave poles in a "trial" situation. It was time well spent! 

SoBe is such a driven little imp that she was absolutely clueless that we were in a training environment and delivered exactly the performance that I knew she would.

I signed her up for 3 runs and the great news is that they got progressively better each run. I am posting the videos in the order that she ran.

The first run she broke her start and was appalled to find out that I would actually pick her up and carry her back to the start line! SoBe is definitely not a fan of being airborne without a plane :-)

She stayed after this and following the jump we had our first opportunity at the A-frame. We lowered the A-frame before she ran as I have yet to ask her for her 2on/2off contact performance on a full height A-frame. 

She offered a beautiful running contact performance that would have been great if that were the criteria that i asked for :-) I replaced her on the bottom of the A-frame, released her and asked for it again, at speed, she stopped beautifully!!!

Next it was time to fight the weave pole battle, this was almost a fight to the death, but, eventually I won and, as I said earlier she got better in each consecutive run. I consciously chose to skip the poles in run 3 as she had improved so much from the first to the second run. There is something to be said for quitting while you are ahead. I am also a huge believer in the concept of latent learning therefore we stopped with success in the poles.

I did add another "complex" obstacle in run 3 in lieu of the weave poles and that was the table, which interestingly enough she does really well :-)

Once we got through the weave poles successfully she settled in and offered beautiful dog walk and teeter performances, YEA SoBe!

We did not even get into "handling" as I was focused on complex behaviors and helping SoBe realize that even though you are running fast, you can still think. This is a very difficult concept for a doer!

SoBe's jumping was amazing as always, she did not drop a single bar and rarely does, she is a very athletic little girl!

It was my hope to get to another match tonight, but, it is raining cats and dogs, again!!! Colorado is no longer a desert as far as I am concerned! I do have the opportunity to get to another match next Monday evening and SoBe is entered in an AKC trial this coming weekend which I will absolutely use as an opportunity to train. 

Any lead out will be short and her potential inability to control herself no the contacts will result in a hasty exodus from the ring. 

Well, as I was uploading the videos, which were sent to me via email, a message popped up that it was not able to upload and I should call 1-800-computers suck! 

Instead, I will just be leaving you all on pins and needles until Deb. comes over and brings her Flip! camera and I will download them right on to the computer from the camera which has always worked in the past.

Anyway, I do have a very interesting observation about the fun match on Sunday... as I said earlier, I have not been to very many, it has been years probably since my last match, anyway, my interpretation of a fun match is a show setting with the energy, people, adrenaline, etc.. but also with the opportunity to fix problems that have a tendency to show themselves in the show setting almost exclusively.

It was certainly my intention to utilize this rare opportunity to put SoBes contacts, weaves, and stat lines to the test and I took full advantage of that opportunity by correcting the behaviors that I did not want and rewarding the ones I did. 

What was so interesting was the number of people that I watched become paralyzed by show mentality and ring nerves and allow the same inconsistent behaviors and lack of criteria they allow at a real trial. What is the point??

It is incredible to me how easily people create situations that allow for one set of criteria in training and a completely different set of criteria in trials. The more differentiate the requirements of a training situation from the trials you bigger the gap becomes between the two and the harder it will be to bridge that gap.

If you go to a fun match, show and go, whatever, use it for what it was intended, to bridge the training and trialing gap, not increase it! 

One last note, as I said I took Wally and Maze as well, my intention for Wally was to proof the stride collection work I have been doing on the dog walk, well I did but it was easy because the Wallymeister cannot be fooled and knew immediately we ere not at a trial, even though I went through our pre run rituals and everything! He is such a smart boy!

Maze came because I thought he would enjoy a run :-) He was pretty much perfect as I expected, also a very good boy!

So, in conclusion, try to sleep at night while you wait for SoBe's videos from the match.