Self image

Well, the weekend went pretty badly - other than Teaz doing decently at NCCCRC's obedience trial on Friday, and me not having any problems driving up there and back, it was rather awful.  Proxy flunked both Open B and Utility, Dodger passed both but with low scores due to uninspired work and got his first GO leg the same way.

Then the hunt test.  In Master, Dodger had to be double handled on a fairly easy land triple, partially due to bad luck and partially due to a mistake I made.  In Senior, Proxy refused to go on the land blind, maybe because of pressure last week in training except it looked more like she flat didn't know what she was supposed to do.  I may have also rushed her on the line as well, I don't know because at that point I was simply exhausted.

Sooo, it's probably time for me to reassess whether or not I can continue to do advanced field training.  We worked hard these past weeks getting ready for this test and both dogs went out in the first series. That hurt, a lot; actually, it still hurts a lot.  For decades a big part of my self image has been me as one of the top field trainers of Curlies in the country, which doesn't mean much really but still, it was there.  Now?  Looks like I'm going to have to give up a big chunk of who I am.

I know that there will be those who will say that I shouldn't make decisions based on how the dogs acted when I was so tired, but the fact is I was pretty beat up even before we left for Dixon on Friday morning.  We'd been out to Prado three times that week, Tuesday thru Thursday and even tho it was only for 2 - 4 hours each time, it really took it's toll.  I had already dropped working Teaz in Junior since she wasn't entered in this test, now I am going to try making Proxy the priority instead of Dodger (since it doesn't look like I'll be able to get him back up to speed in Master in the time he has left) and see if that works.  I guess if I really wanted to hold onto field work, I'd drop training for obedience and agility as well, but I have always been a multi-event trainer, so I guess I'm even more invested in that than field work.

So, we'll see.  It's a bitch being old and broken at only 54.  I'm going to go take a nap.