Tailwagger's USDAA trial April 17 - 19

I've been feeling discouraged by moronic mistakes I make at trial. The past two trials I've totally screwed up a couple of things.

UGH.

This past weekend, in the performance speed jumping finals – first time we've ever made it in! I dropped my arm when I should have pushed DJ out to the second to last jump and dropped out connection he came in to me and we missed the jump.

I should be feeling good, it was fun, we Q'd in a bunch of stuff and are slowly making our way out of starters. We've only done 5 USDAA trials now and just need one more starters Q to get to Advanced, we have 3 Qs in the games classes. I think, at least 2 in some.

Three for sure in Jumpers and Pairs. Maybe just two in Snooker and Gamblers but I think three. Who knows I'm too lazy to figure it out at the moment.

Its just so discouraging to do such dumb stuff. We're both still green, we've only been trialing for 1 year, I should give myself a pass and just chalk it up to a learning experience.

I'm very competitive though and just seethe comparing myself to the Really Good People.

Of course they make mistakes too, the most common one seems to be dropped bars and timing issues there…

but with DJ the place where I've been going wrong is in pulling him off the jump entirely when I look ahead to where we're going.

Its all just for fun and such. Right, of course. But it is a competition and a test of skills and its frustrating to see myself making dumb mistakes.

Its all so confusing, on the one hand its "only" dog agility and on the other hand it’s a such a time, money, effort, thought – sink.
Poor DJ, he's a good man and does the best he can with the handler he's stuck with.