Ups and Downs

Shall we start with the ups?

Had a great weekend with Kiros at Agility Nuts.  He ran beautifully and managed a 2nd place in Novice + Agility and 1st in Novice + Jumping.  Here is a link to the video of his win.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=154964661184927&ref=mf

It's the first time that I've seen him run for a while and I'm quite happy to see that although he isn't as fast as he used to be he doesn't appear to be showing any sign of his age.

This was the last show of the Summer Season and the Agility Nuts of the Season were announced on Sunday.  Kiros won the Large Senior award by some margin.  I couldn't have hoped for any more from him.

Now the downs :(

At the beginning of June I resolutely told you that I wouldn't start competing with Reno until he could run a course in training.  Then after a really promising show at the end of June my resolve wained a little and I started running him at KC shows.

In my heart of hearts I knew he wasn't ready but thought that the ring experience would help him improve.

Unfortunately I was wrong and after this weekend I have decided not to compete with Reno again until he is more confident.

Our main problem is still the weaves.  Although he can do them in isolation he finds them very difficult in a course and, as they don't hold such high value to him as other obstacles, he chooses not to attempt them going off to do another obstacle or worse still going for a sniff.  In a competition ring I am struggling to control his choices so my only option is to stop competing until he actually wants to do them.

It is a real shame as I have really enjoyed running him and was very much looking forward to the remaining shows that we have entered. I'm worried about allowing the problem to escalate and am hoping that if I take action now I will be able to get him competing again very soon.  Hopefully there will be some courses without weaves in them that we can have a go at!!

On a positive note he was excellent at training last night.  Although he didn't actually do his weaves in the course he got the entry every time and came straight back to attempt them so hopefully we are getting somewhere? :)