Rawh

Basically I never did any training with Charlie on contact obstacles. At VIP we didn't have contact obstacles until I'd gotten into the advanced class and started trialing, and then we never really ended up using them anyway. Shortly after we got a proper a frame I stopped agility there and started at my trial supervisor's house anyway, and we just kept going with the lack of foundation.

To be honest, I'm an idiot. I shouldn't even be trialing him in anything other than jumpers and gamblers until I get his contacts sorted, but it's been something I kind of think, "Oh, we'll just practice in between trials and it'll get better".

Not a good attitude.

Anyway, so the "rawh" is because it's not just the contact touching part that I'm having to worry about now: at the trial on Saturday and at training tonight Charlie was just running past the a frame and dog walk, like it wasn't even an obstacle. He'd either take the tunnel under it, or go out and opt for a jump, or just run a straight line past it. And it's frustrating the crap out of me, because he literally started that at the trial and I have no idea why. He's done a couple of "too excited to slow down, woops the entry's behind me now" moments at trials in the past, but he is actually going out of his way to avoid them; he'll just totally ignore my shoulders and directional cues and verbal cues and blind cross me.

I don't know if it's his adjustment that's making taking the obstacles unpleasant for him, or if he's just decided that he's not had enough foundation and heavy reward on them so wants to do something else, but it's bloody annoying and I'm now looking at the reality that I have to stop being lazy and actually go back and retrain the a frame and dog walk- and seesaw, actually- from scratch again. And I probably ought to not enter anything agility at trials and just stick to jumpers until I get it sorted; or at least just use not for comp ADAA runs for practice in a trial environment.

I don't have any equipment at home- or much flat space to set up something shoddy- but I really can't ignore it anymore. We'll never get out of novice agility until we nail contact obstacles.

Rawh.