Establishing Goals

"He has his first show (or the CGC or a self-imposed deadline) coming up very soon, so it is possible that I have been a little bit obsessed with trying to train this.  I will try to back off a bit."

The absolute worst Worst WORST thing you can do with any competition
behaviour is to train for the competition that's coming up. Pull out if
you have to. It took me a LOONG time to realize that the money was
spent the day I entered. Whether we go in the ring or not doesn't
matter. The money is gone. Once I got that through my head, it became
much easier for me to make rational decisions about whether to go in
the ring or not on any particular day.

Now I know that I'm putting the dog in a show with certain goals in
mind. Scuba is entered in 4 obedience trials and 2 CKC agility trials
in May. My goals for her are, frankly, to get a CD and two legs in
agility, and possibly get a CDX leg as well. She's older than dirt, she
has amazing public access skills, and she's been doing this stuff since
Methuselah was a pup. Just gimme the legs.

Stitch is entered in 4 conformation shows in the same venue. She'll be 10 mo,

she alternates between really unsure of herself and hysterically glad to see anybody.
My goals for her are to show her that shows are a good place to calmly
meet wonderful people and gets lots of treats. That means that if she
sits in the ring but hits my goals, I'll be happy. If I have to walk
her around at the show and not put her in the ring in order to hit my
goals, I'll be happy. If she trots cheerfully around the ring and
flosses the judge's teeth, I'll be happy.

My kids and I took Suzuki method violin lessons - and they were way fun
for about two months. Then one day the teacher came to class and
announced that there was a recital coming up, we had to learn three
songs for it, let's get down to business and stop fooling around on
this actual "learning" nonsense. Within two sessions my kids hated it.
We quit.

Sue Eh?