Although there was some progress made toward fixing crooked sits and sloppy turns, this was not one of our better pre-trial review sessions. This was the last run-through of the day, and you can see that Freya is beginning to shut down a bit.
Strangely enough, this less-than-stellar practice session was followed the next day by one of our best trial performances: a score of 208 and 1st place in the Level 1 “A” division. The next trial run later on Sunday resulted in a NQ, though, so I’m not quite sure what the moral of the story might be.
Maybe it’s just that I need to figure out the best way to do the last-minute practices and to handle the downtime between trials. Are the day-before last minute practices more helpful or stressful? So far, they seem to be more helpful, but maybe I should lessen the number of run-throughs. Should I do more or less warm-up between trials, and how soon before showtime for the second trial? That one isn’t quite so obvious.
As always, you can see more videos of Freya, her classmates, and other dogs-in-training on Allan’s YouTube channel.
(NaBloPoMo | February ’10: 14 of 28)