Dusty's last trial was a New Years Eve weekend NADAC trial, and it was pretty much a bust. He grew more adrenalized with each successive run. His startline stay was totally gone by the 12th run on Sunday. However, even more disheartening was the reappearance of a contact issue--this time the teeter.

The teeter caused Dusty much concern when we began training two years ago, and I assumed it was the motion aspect because he was also hesitant to get on a Buja board. I ended up teaching Dusty the teeter by propping the up end on the table and the down end on a milk crate in order to decrease its range of travel. (The height of my teeter was not adjustable.) I used his favorite toy to lure him to interact with the teeter in any way he would. Eventually, we had a pretty decent teeter. Once we began trialing, Dusty's A-frame and DW contacts quickly went to hell, but his teeter remained pretty good. I spent about four months (July-October) re-working his contact performances in training at home, and we seemed to have been successful until our last trial when Dusty refused to get on the teeter after his first run. (The DW and A-frame performances remained acceptable providing he got that far on the courses.) A couple of times, I finally made him do it physically. Then during our last standard run on the second day of the trial, he actually did the teeter on his own. Should have quit while we were ahead. Last run of the weekend was a disasterous Touch n Go run. No stay, no contacts, no control.

Naturally, there really isn't a problem with the teeter in our backyard unless I get Dusty super, super worked up with a toy before running the teeter. He did not want to get on the teeter in class last week or this week (two different locations). Last week I managed to get him to do the teeter by luring; this week I had to take him by the collar and force him to do it.

I went to a friend's home today to use her teeter. He's never seen her yard, let alone her teeter. The base is PVC and a little wobbly. Oh, boy, this should be a great chance to work on our teeter issue. NOT! He ran it perfectly every time except once when he bailed due to a crummy approach.

Ok, what's missing from this setting that we experienced in class and at trial? Well, I'm more concerned about our performance at a trial, but I don't think I'm that worried about it in a class setting. The last trial was in a very noisy setting, but on the other hand, we have been there for at least six trials so the setting should be familiar to him.  Neither class is in a particulary noisy setting.Â

Obviously, something about the class and trial scene is pumping Dusty up to the point where teeter is very difficult for him, and it is not really just an issue of performing on a strange teeter. It is an issue of the teeter performance at high speed or under stresses that I am not recognizing.