Evaluation

Ri did one and a half runs at Empingham, and then I quit for the weekend. She wasn’t focused, wasn’t working, and was going through a classic displacement and calming signals routine during her run(s). This blog is going to seem a bit disjointed, because I’m jotting down fragments of thoughts in an attempt to figure this out.

We seem to have a recurring theme where I ask her to do something, and this is a source of stress for her, so she quits. I don’t know how to fix this?

Most of the things that Rio does very well, were shaped – ie. from her own intiative – but I don’t know how to apply this to an agility ring.

Rio was much more focused and much more engaged at UKA, compared to Empingham. Environmental? Smaller shows, fenced rings, training rounds?

I did some work around the rings on Sunday, experimenting with focus and her willingness to engage. She really wanted to tug, play, offered tricks for food, played Look-at-That and Look-at-Me. She doesn’t see working with me as a reward of itself, I don’t know how to change this either.

Checking her pads on Sunday evening and she has got an odd little blister or maybe a bite? It’s very very tiny, but she was nibbling at it, so maybe irritated/sore = added stress?

Decisions. We have nothing much in August, just Sutton Weavers UKA, and we’ll go from there. In a perfect world, we would spend the next month touring agility training venues and doing lots of generalisation and testing in different environments, but that costs things I don’t have at the moment (money to hire or training day fees, money for diesel, time). I’m definitely scrapping KC shows with her for a while and we’ll focus on UKA and unaffiliated.