I will say I did get a kick out of our level 3 TDAA first places. Won't lie. That's the only venue I've run yet that I actually have competition. All of our level 3 (superior/masters equivalent) TDAA Qs have been first places in very full classes with dogs that have several TAChs and quite a few with NATChs.
It is fun when you win. Not going to lie. But there's a lot more to it than that for me.
The most impressive thing to me was the course (i forget the game's name) where you have to handle behind 3 different distance lines (each progressively farther out) and she did all of them! Summer and distance don't go together, she's a dog that wants to run at my heels.
And on the note of 'heeling over obstacles'.... well I have a dog that doesn't send out worth crap. I'd prefer if she did obviously but it means I run a LOT in a course. Summer really feeds off me and if I'm confident and running fast then she is too. If I slow down, she does too. I actually run a lot more than a lot of my friends with bigger dogs because Summer's distance skills suck so bad. And at this point I don't care to fix them much. I work on them in ring rentals some but I'd rather her be fast and happy and rightnexttome than stressy and slow because I'm asking her to send out. In TDAA I can run fast enough to get to the backsides of most obstacles but in USDAA HAHAHAHA. Yeah. It doesn't work so well.
I think a lot of her wanting to run next to me is because of her foundations with her breeder and then her first classes wayyyy back when were on a leash. Even though I took her back through foundations at 8 years old I still see a lot of that peeking through.
It is fun when you win. Not going to lie. But there's a lot more to it than that for me.
The most impressive thing to me was the course (i forget the game's name) where you have to handle behind 3 different distance lines (each progressively farther out) and she did all of them! Summer and distance don't go together, she's a dog that wants to run at my heels.
And on the note of 'heeling over obstacles'.... well I have a dog that doesn't send out worth crap. I'd prefer if she did obviously but it means I run a LOT in a course. Summer really feeds off me and if I'm confident and running fast then she is too. If I slow down, she does too. I actually run a lot more than a lot of my friends with bigger dogs because Summer's distance skills suck so bad. And at this point I don't care to fix them much. I work on them in ring rentals some but I'd rather her be fast and happy and rightnexttome than stressy and slow because I'm asking her to send out. In TDAA I can run fast enough to get to the backsides of most obstacles but in USDAA HAHAHAHA. Yeah. It doesn't work so well.
I think a lot of her wanting to run next to me is because of her foundations with her breeder and then her first classes wayyyy back when were on a leash. Even though I took her back through foundations at 8 years old I still see a lot of that peeking through.