When Great Isn't Good Enough

Peyton and I had class last night and he was awesome...despite being off for a few weeks, he showed some really great attention and focus. He was a little squirrely at times, especially at the start-line, but otherwise I really have no complaints. He was running with speed, confidence and enthusiasm - exactly what I want.

So why the "when great isn't good enough" title? Well, that would be *my* issue. You see, this particular course we ran last night had four sets of 6 weaves and was designed to work on entries...we ran the first half of the course, then the second half, and finally put the whole course together. I think Peyton nailed his weaves when we ran each half individually, but when we ran the whole course he missed a few of his entries.

Now had I been running the "half-focused" Peyton, I would have probably just made a mental note of the miss and keep on going, but since he was running so nicely, I decided to stop him and repeat the problem sequence - um, three times I think (#20 on the course map below). Other than looking a little confused as to why I kept stopping him, he kept trying - what a good boy. As for me - what a bad handler.

I know to a lot of trainers, the thought of "fixing" a mistake in the weaves isn't a big deal - and perhaps for many dogs, it's not an issue. But for Peyton - a dog that generally has a hard time staying focused and clearly doesn't like being "wrong" - I think this was a big mistake on my part...and it goes back to my title, "when great isn't good enough".

Instead of celebrating the great aspects of our runs, I found myself getting stuck on the small mistakes. And while I think this is fairly common mistake we all make, I feel like I need to remind myself more often to look past the wrongs and concentrate on all of the rights.

In the end, I don't think repeating the weaves did much harm, but I don't think it was very productive either. The last think I want is for him to start worrying about the weaves. I keep remembering back to last spring when I attended the Dalmatian Nationals (only as a spectator...yes, I'm a nerd) and was amazed at how much sneezing, yawning, and lip licking was going on in the weaves...talk about some stressed spotties! I know that this can be a common problem across all breeds, but I have to say I had never seen it to that extent. I guess our sensitive spotties must be prone to a little weave-a-phobia. :)

Well, I think that's enough rambling for one day...we have class again tonight and I'm going to make it a point to not obsess over weave entries or anything other than having fun with my wild spotty boy. :)