The Year is Almost Up

We've had a world wind of agility extravaganza these past few weeks all culminating in a USDAA tournament weekend. Tazz will be running on Sunday, but his team mate is hurt so he is sitting out Saturday. Fin is running with the Screeeming Monkeees (aka team small dog and Millie the sweetest dog in the world) on Sat. It is bound to be a fun exciting day - will we qualify? who knows and who cares...we are all about the fun! Sunday are a couple games classes and Steeplechase and GP. We are hoping for some Q's Sunday, but for us we want to run to the best of our ability and grow as a team.

This is it till January. We feel we've done real well this 1st year of Fins career. We've started in Masters in USDAA and in Excellent standard and open JWW in AKC. Haven't competed in any other venue and have not done a ton of shows. Baby steps.

Areas I want to improve:

• Run faster - take off the weight and add more sprinting to my workouts
• Decision making when walking a course - I am still making mistakes when I plan my courses. I want to get better at following a specific system. It is ok to experiment, but not ok to think I'm doing something right but end up screwing it up.
• Excel at distance work - still not really doing well here and I need more practice.
• Independent obstacles - I should be able to be anywhere and my dogs should finish the weaves and contact correctly.
• More tricks - as an added bonus and relationship bonding experience

If I can improve in these 5 areas, next year I should have my ADCH and MACH. Each month I'll outline what I'm doing and plan to put in place measurements to demonstrate improvement.