AKC Match

Our AKC match this afternoon went pretty well...Peyton didn't seem to be as comfortable as I would have liked, but I think we got in a few good training runs and hopefully he'll relax a little more over the weekend.

They started about a 1/2 hour early today and since we were in the first group to run I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to really let Peyton get settled. And in the 10 minutes we did have, we managed to encounter a few rude dogs...he handled them pretty well, but I think it stressed him out a little. Ah, welcome to big trials - I have a feeling I'm going to have to work really hard to find ways to manage our space. Peyton isn't too keen on having a strange dog run up and sniff his rear - not that I can blame him! :)

Our first run was standard and it seemed like Peyton was running with his head in the clouds. It wasn't terrible, but I could tell his spotty brain was in overdrive - you can really see by the time we get to the table...it just looked like his eyeballs were about to pop out. :) Our next run was jumpers - I lost him pretty good at first, but we managed to work it out. When reviewing the video, I noticed that he just didn't seem physically comfortable during this run - he was adding strides before many of the jumps and slipping in a few places. I'm hoping that it's just a matter of him getting used to the surface - his next jumpers run looked much better.

Tomorrow we start with novice FAST and as much as I hate coming up with my own plan (yes, I like numbers), it should be a good little warm-up. I think I'm going to have to experiment a little to see how much time I need to have him out before we run - I need enough time to get him focusing on me, but not so much that he has time to worry about all of the other dogs.

Here's a little video from today...more updates to come!