At the start of each new agility year I set myself a few goals. This year’s were:
- Increased independence in Rik’s weaves. This was a huge sticking point for us as she used to stop and wait for me before she entered, and then stop after every two poles to check if she was done yet. Quite often she would bail right at the end because she couldn’t see the last pole in her peripheral vision while she was staring at me – very frustrating! My goal was to have a weekend with a 75% success rate on completing the weaves without stopping in the middle. We achieved this at each of our last 3 shows of the year.
- Get Rik comfortable performing the seesaw on courses. By the end of 2017 she was happy on the seesaw at club, but would bail off the side when she met it in an AD trial. We aren’t all the way there yet – she’s got a 50% success rate from her recent seesaw encounters – but she is actually flying off the end now rather than jumping off before it tips. We got our first clear round in AD recently because of the work I put into this.
- Win out of Starters. We’d had a lot of really nice five-fault runs in Starters, but only one win. This was obviously closely related to my goal to fix our weaves. We never managed that second Starters win, but a surprise Novice win in March put us up to Novice/Intermediate level.
- Earn 10 clear rounds in Jumpers B. We’d been enjoying Bs in 2017 but I wanted to see an improved consistency. We fell short of this goal with 7 clear rounds, but I think we would have got there if we hadn’t spent four months out with an injury. I would still like to see more consistent results in 2019 though.
Onward to 2019
Rik is now seven years old. She injured her toe this year, and could have suffered other wear and tear from her former life as a working sheepdog. She is currently fit and keen to run, but I don’t know how much longer her career will be.
That has steered me a little more towards outcome goals this year. I definitely want to improve a couple of our weakest areas, but I’ve realised that we are running out of years to achieve everything and I would like to
With that in mind, our 2019 goals are:
- Conquer early commitment to wraps. Rik is more of a “velcro dog” than any of my previous dogs have been, and she finds it very difficult to commit to wraps. I have been working on this since the NZDAC and there has been some improvement – I was really happy with today’s training session. My biggest goal for 2019 is to wean Rik off all the help I have been giving her on course, and achieve a 75% success rate for independent performance of wraps by the end of the year.
- Pull off a rear cross on the weaves in competition. We worked hard on this last summer and we are fairly successful at home, but much less so at club. I’ve tried it a couple of times in the ring recently and she’s still not confident enough to keep driving forward through the poles when I disappear from view. We are close though so 2019 is going to be our year!
- Earn 5 clear rounds in Intermediate. We made our Intermediate debut in July, and have one clear round so far. Most of our runs have been better than expected, although there has been the odd disaster. Our teamwork and connection on the course will need to improve to achieve this – most of our mistakes are caused by the human member of the team!
- Earn 10 clear rounds in Jumpers B. I’m going to carry this goal over from last year and see if we can hit it in 2019. Again, our teamwork is the biggest area we need to work on.
- What did you and your dog achieve in 2018? What are your goals for next year?
