The Spaniel Annals

The first obedience trial weekend of the year at the Puyallup Fairgrounds affirmed the mental and physical training I’ve been working on the past few months.  Lanny Bassham, founder of the Mental Management program and an Olympic gold medalist, described the difference between accomplishment and attainment: “accomplishment” is the fulfilling of external goals.  “Attainment” is the journey of “becoming” as my dogs and I move towards our goals.  We accomplished a lot this weekend: Journey earned her Open obedience title with a good score of 196.  Rozzie earned her Novice title, close behind Journey with a 195.  Reardon won his class both days in Advanced Rally.  

But the attainments were much more important.    Rozzie, who is very environmentally sensitive, got spooked by an odd movement by the judge, but recovered to stay with me on the off-leash heeling.  She also didn’t whine during the downstay, which was a problem last time she was in the ring.  I love seeing her able to recover from something startling more quickly as she gets older and more confident.

Since Reardon considers his leash an umblical cord, Advanced Rally was a deliberate choice to give him off-leash experience before we go into Open.  I helped him a few times with position and attention, but he seemed to have a blast and was very proud of himself.

However, the teamwork between Journey and myself was the highest attainment of the weekend.  Saturday I kept to my plan for mental preparation (a major attainment for me!), and Journey showed improvement in all the areas we’ve been working on: better position on the figure 8, more consistent halts, a more flowing broad jump, and better connection with me between exercises.    The whole experience seemed to flow and had that magical feeling of connection I hope to always experience with my dogs in the ring.  While there were certainly little glitches, we are certainly in the process of becoming a strong team. Here’s our video:

The next day, Sunday, proved to be more difficult in that process of “becoming.”  While Reardon put in another great performance, Journey struggled.  She decided sitting was a dirty word in the heeling pattern and so we lost 13 points for the heeling.  (OUCH!)   Then she laid down during the sitstay, which flunked us.   What I’m learning to do (or “struggling to do” would be more accurate) is to avoid negativity about Sunday, and instead process it as information about the next steps in our training.  I need to focus on the solution, not the problem.  I also need to reinforce within myself all of the absolutely wonderful things that happened this weekend.   On Saturday, Journey and I had magic in the ring.  We WILL have it again.