My 'Maya' by Ash Truscott

I heard this song on my way to a seminar this morning and realised it really described my life currently. "Some days I'm flying high, I'm falling low; Some days I'm made of gold, I'm made of stone". Today was AWESOME! My awesome Maya ran her heart out all day and only started to shut down right at the end. She did have a mishap during a sequence this morning where she landed funny and pretty much fell over, summersaulted and got a mouth full of sand! She is 8 years old and I'm so surprised she didn't pull up lame after that but I keep her very fit and healthy.

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I learnt she much prefers to run a Novice course that flows over a Masters course any day. The twists and turns shut her off. The Masters course was 25 obstacles long and she did well till mid way through when we can't really layer (she has never been great at layering) then at the end I ran out of steam and she took an extra jump or two. It was the same in the Novice course when she took an off course jump after the tunnel. I'm so happy with her, she was very enthusiastic today.

    

Maya’s titles in agility include: Novice Agility Dog (ANKC), Novice Jumping Dog (ANKC), Novice Snooker Dog (ANKC), Australian Agility Dog (ADAA), Regular-Senior Australian Agility Dog (ADAA).

Maya prefers training over trials as she’s a very stressy and nervous dog and in training there is often no stress from me.

We have been doing agility for 4 years and trialling for 3. I started when she was 4 years old. She was never socialised as a pup so that’s played a massive role in her nervousness and anxiety today. She has become reactive due to being bullied by other dogs.

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When we started agility, she had a period where she would run off back to her crate or hide in tunnels out of fear, mainly at training. What helped to bring her out of that was I had a friend's Border Collie on loan who I trained and spent all my time with for a few weeks and I think Maya felt left out.  

I felt frustrated having to work with a dog who didn’t enjoy agility at all at the time. She doesn’t mind the environment of trials now but it’s in the ring where she often shuts down, but she does have her really beautiful runs and that’s why I keep doing agility and trialling with her.

Maya and I have recently started a new sport called Earthdog which is a sport designed for terriers as they go underground through a burrow in search of prey (rabbits, rats, etc).

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Maya loves sleeping on my bed, and she sometimes comes to work with me and helps me feed the horses. Some of her best doggy friends are working dogs but she picks and chooses the dogs she likes.

She also knows a range of tricks that I’ve taught her including 'sit pretty', 'ring a bell' and 'spin', just to name a few.

At the end of the day, Maya is my best friend.