Flying Poodles

About my border poodle…

I joke that Dancer is a border collie/poodle cross, because she’s fast and loves agility.

But you know how the border collies and the aussies bark and nip their handlers because they’re slow on their cues? Dancer got eliminated today in Jumpers because she nipped me! I told the judge she didn’t actually get me and he replied “the intent was there.”

He was right. Dancer was pissed at me–guess why?

Because I WAS LATE ON MY CUES.

Gosh. What a surprise.

It finally dawned on me after the jumpers run that I’m late because Dancer’s running faster, looking ahead more, and beginning to understand the agility game. We Q’d in Novice Chances–a distance game–first thing in the morning, the only dog in her class (20″ skilled, 7 dogs) to Q. I trusted her to make the distance–she did it.

She had a nice run–but nonqualifying–in Touch N Go (no dog walk)–and I trusted her on the distance.

In Jumpers, I wanted the Q and I tried to micromanage. She told me off.

So in Tunnelers, I decided to handle as if I had a perfectly trained, distance-loving border collie. I led out two tunnels, I gave my signals early and calmly. I walked from cue to cue while Dancer did twenty foot tunnels and the distance between them–I walked almost the entire course while she ran at top speed around me. She did the tunnelers course in 27 seconds, around 125 yards (I don’t know exactly, I forgot to write it down). I walked about fifty feet and ran about 60 feet.

She Q’d and got first place in her class. It helped that the other five dogs in Novice 20″ skilled didn’t show up.