You Gotta learn to walk before you can run.

Today the pups and I were at an AKC trial at this wonderful indoor soccer center in the Denver area, the dogs did really well :-) Wally had a beautiful standard run with an unfortunate bar... SoBe decided to see if I was willing to maintain my criteria at an AKC trial where we pay premium dollar for 2 whole runs. She learned that I will still maintain criteria even with those very tempting reasons to potentially falter on that a bit. Her standard run was by far the fastest of them all, of course she only did a tire and 1 jump before being carried off the course for breaking her start line! I do love my ever pushy Doodle Bug!
Maze had a beautiful standard run and Q'd with a 1st place :-) We got to play role reversal in JWW, where SoBe took the message to heart, had a very nice stay and a smokin' clean JWW run! Wally also decided that he could Q in JWW since we got that pesky double Q possibility over with in standard :-)
Maze did the always unusual for him, he dropped a bar. So, we were 50% today but alas, no double Q's.. Tomorrow we head back down for another go at it, and, if the weather decides to improve and be as beautiful as they are predicting we may play hooky and go hiking on Monday instead of to the trial, sometimes a lovely hike is a way better idea than a day indoors at a trial :-)
We have a very busy few weeks of trialing coming up, next weekend is a 4 Star USDAA trial in Minnesota, followed by the Alberta Canada Regionals, then another 4 star in Utah :-) There will be a little vacation in between as we are taking the RV and making an extended road trip out of it.
So, what's with the title of todays post? Actually I was thinking about starting a young dog again and it got me thinking about all that is involved in starting the babies trialing.
Next weekend Danger will make his debut in USDAA in jumpers and gamblers. To say I am a bit nervous is sort of an understatement, but mostly I am super excited!!
Danger is such an incredible boy I truly cannot wait to get into the ring with him. I do realize, however, there are a multitude of potential things that can happen and yet, I have know idea what actually will. I just know that he is ready to try out a real trial and I also know that there are going to be tons of things that do not go exactly as planned which is totally fine! I know what I have taught him to do, I know what my criteria is and I know that my expectations can only be for him to do the best he can in a totally new environment on totally new equipment in a very high charged environment.
I am prepared to praise the living daylights out of him, I am prepared to get a full unobstructed view of all of holes that we most certainly have at this point in our training, and, I am fully prepared to enjoy every second of our time out on course no matter what happens!
He is a baby, we are not yet a team, and, I have yet to actually run a "full" course with him even in a training situation. Danger will need experience in the ring to know what to do, "we" need experience in the ring to become a real team, and, my wonderful, beautiful, super smart baby boy needs to learn to walk before he can truly run!