Do you ever have a bad day?

Laurelin

I'm All Ears
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
30,963
Likes
3
Points
0
Age
37
Location
Oklahoma
#1
Brought about by yesterday's class. Mia and I looked like a pair of bumbling fools with no idea what we were doing. My handling was awful, bad timing, tripping over myself. Mia was in full blown- oohshiny!!! mode. We made a great pair....

The class culminated in an 'obstacle course'. Circle a cone both directions with the dog focusing on you. Then take the dog through a tunnel. Get the dog to tug. Another circle around a cone. Have the dog hit three targets. Done. Simple, yes?

It was like watching a disaster, I am sure.

Mia saw the tunnel and had tunnel suck going on bad. Then she was sure she was supposed to target the cones and slap them with her paw. I tripped and almost fell over her because she was so distracted.

Taking today as a break and have two weeks till the next series of classes starts up. We have a lot to work on.

Please tell me I'm not the only one though. :eek:
 

lizzybeth727

Active Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2007
Messages
6,403
Likes
0
Points
36
Location
Central Texas
#2
Oh yeah.

Though I think it might be worse when a company is paying me to train their dogs, and I appear to never have used a clicker in my whole life. Good times.

I have a lot of these days with Keegan, too. He tends to bring out the "sucky trainer" in me. :) I just tell myself that it'll be better next time, this is a learning experience for the both of us and it certainly won't get any worse. Then we go play frisbee or something and forget about the bad day. ;)
 

Laurelin

I'm All Ears
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
30,963
Likes
3
Points
0
Age
37
Location
Oklahoma
#4
I felt like my trainer was watching me and thinking 'poor girl is so clueless' lol

I also realize I have this bad habit of apologizing to the trainer if we do poorly. I need to stop that.
 

Moth

Mild and Slightly Nutty
Joined
May 9, 2011
Messages
5,039
Likes
2
Points
38
Location
Madison, WI
#5
You are definitely not the only one...

Sometimes my brain falls out and sometimes the dogs loose their minds. Even worse there are days when both those things coincide...

I have had moments where we all just take a deep breath and have to call it a day...because they and I are feeling frustrated :)

Menchi has moments when she decides that enough training has happened and puts her dainty paws down...no animal does stubborn quite like a shar pei let me tell you.

When Watson decides he is done focusing and other things need to be happening it is like trying to catch the attention of a hummingbird on cocaine :D
 

stardogs

Behavior Nerd
Joined
Jun 13, 2009
Messages
4,925
Likes
0
Points
0
Location
NC
#6
OMG yes! I was thiiiis close to entering Aeri in a trial for her BH title and then we had 3 sessions in a row like that, so nope, we need more work before I try it in public! lol
 

Red.Apricot

Active Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2011
Messages
2,984
Likes
2
Points
38
Location
Southern California
#7
Oh goodness yes. I've had days where she's just. not. there, and days where I can't figure out how to communicate with her. Like, we'll both be up and ready to go, and she just gives me this blank "I'd love to, but I don't know what you're asking for," face and it's a disaster.

We've even had days where I've handed the leash to my boyfriend and said, "She's yours, I'm done," which is obviously not true.

90% of the time, she's a joy.

10% of the time... she's not, lol.
 

Shai

& the Muttly Crew
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
6,215
Likes
0
Points
36
#8
I should post the vids from our last trial. Had to scratch Kim so was just running Mira -- totally misplaced a cross (normally a strong point in my handling) and sent Mira toward...nothing. NOTHING. Empty space. A fine moment, truly lol.

Fortunately she went "uhhh I'm sure you meant this" and did a funky blind cross to take the chute but jeez. I just had to laugh.

And then there's Kim who likes to torture me at odd moments. Early on in our career we did a FAST course to "warm up" for a weekend of trialing. Basically (for the most part) you just make up your own course for points. Kim made up her own course all right. She smelled the fresh dew, dug her toes into the cool morning earth, and took off like a shot.

She earned 32 points while I stood in place by the start line yelling "KIM! KIM! COME HERE! HEY! KIIIIIM!" and waved my arms as though the only problem was that she didn't know where I was. Right. That was not the problem lol.

That was a tiny local trial where I used to live so I'm pretty sure I knew every single person there. Good times lol.
 

Laurelin

I'm All Ears
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
30,963
Likes
3
Points
0
Age
37
Location
Oklahoma
#9
I should have known- from the moment I set Mia up next to me (thinking that the cones would be a cakewalk since we do those in rally all the time) and then unleashed her and she took off without any cue straight into the tunnel that it would be a bad run. lol
 

CharlieDog

Rude and Not Ginger
Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Messages
9,419
Likes
0
Points
0
Location
Georgia
#11
Practically every day with Knox lately. He's back in bootcamp until he remembers I exist and he must answer to me.
 

crysania

New Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2012
Messages
76
Likes
0
Points
0
Location
NY
#12
Ohhhh no. You're definitely not the only one. I remember one class where Dahlia looked at the weave poles like she'd never ever seen them before in her life and had no idea what to do.

And then there was the fun match we went to where she refused to get up on the A-Frame and Dog walk, was disastrously slow, I was tripping all over myself trying to figure out what the heck to do. And someone said "Well, maybe she'd make a good therapy dog." Oh boy was THAT embarrassing!
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2011
Messages
976
Likes
1
Points
0
Location
Grande Prairie, AB
#13
Of course! The tough thing is to remember not to take it personally. :)

Last week I had Pan out to do some jump grids and she was a fool. She was crashing jumps, running around jumps, totally not herself. I took a break (I was getting frustrated) then went back in a bit and ended our training with simple One Jump work to let her be successful.

Later that night I realized she had gone into heat, lol. I've been giving her a break since and hopefully she'll be back to her old self next time we go out.

She also acted like a nut a few weeks ago in our foundations class. I guess I had been getting too cocky and needed my ego put in check, lol! The instructor didn't believe me when I told her that Pan has people issues because she had been working amazingly well beside strangers. Then the stars aligned, and an exercise we were doing had us walking right toward the special needs helper guy. Pan looked away from me momentarily, he was just a few feet ahead of her making direct eye contact, and she exploded into her nasty want-to-kill bark and lunge. Thankfully she recovered well and was able to work around him again, but yeah, dogs like to embarrass us as often as they can. :)
 

SaraB

New Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
5,798
Likes
0
Points
0
Location
St. Louis, MO
#14
Yes!! Worst one was at a Stacy Goudy seminar last fall. I was an idiot, Zuma caught on to my idiotness and was a nutterbutter all in front of Stacy, my boss, every other trainer at the center, my students and pretty everyone else on the planet. Luckily, I composed myself to get a couple good runs in by the end, but that was horrid.
 

Shai

& the Muttly Crew
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
6,215
Likes
0
Points
36
#15
Oh there was also the time that Kim decided she had had quite enough rally trialing for one day so she followed a perfect score run with picking up on of the rally signs and chucking it across the ring.

Or the time Mira body-slammed me in Open JWW for running like a fool. Hit me so hard I had bruises on my ribs the next morning lol. Buuut I got the message and remembered that running conservatively with Princess Cheeseface is a bad idea...

Oh and the competitive fun match where the chute fluffer came out at a dumb time to straighten the chust right as we ran by the other way and Kim shot UP the chute...

And these are just in-competition examples...I don't even count the training ones anymore...
 

Shai

& the Muttly Crew
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
6,215
Likes
0
Points
36
#16
Really my point is just that anyone who has competed often enough, especially in a sport like agility, has had some crazy stuff happen. Just part of the same. And instructors worth their salt know this and has probably experienced it firsthand. Hitting bizarre bumps or struggling as a team is expected. It's how you handle those inevitabilities that will affect the opinions of those who matter.
 
Last edited:

Lyzelle

Active Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
Messages
2,826
Likes
0
Points
36
Location
Colorado
#17
Zander's been full of himself the last few days. Running from me, not listening, yelling at me, not sitting still during grooming time(his fave time of the day) just being an over all brat. I'm blaming it on the weather, since we've had a nice few weeks here. Warm weather has a habit of making everyone feel a little full of themselves. Lol. He's gone back to square one with me, and is no longer trustworthy with anything. He's 7 years old, and you would think this was routine by now. But, nope. I guess not. He likes keeping me on my toes every now and then.

And wouldn't you know, just last week he was learning anything and everything I threw at him like it was cake. Breaks are good.
 

Paige

Let it be
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Messages
7,359
Likes
0
Points
0
#18
All the time. I usually am so calm. NOT LATELY. Everything goes wrong and I just need to talk a break so its fun agin.
 

Members online

Top