On maintaining your criteria

“Do not make light of your failings, saying, ‘what are they to me?’ A jug fills drop by drop, so the fool becomes brimful of folly. Do not belittle your virtues, saying ‘they are nothing.’ A jug fills drop by drop, so the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.” – The Dhammapada

In agility, there are obstacles basically made from wooden planks that have yellow sections on both the point of entry and the point of exit. These yellow zones are known as contacts. The entry contact is called the up contact. The exit contact is the down contact. Depending on the venue you are competing in, the dog usually is required to touch the up contact and always is required to touch the down contact.
Touching the down contact has historically been a challenge for Team Maebe. We actually spent the better part of a year working on just that behavior, which she now understands, but has deteriorated during competition over time.
How did that happen? I was sloppy with my criteria.
Here is what she was supposed to do:
Run to the bottom of the obstacle with rear paws on the end of the contact and her front paws on the ground in front of the contact and stay there until released.
Here is what I allowed her to do over a long period of time:
In the excitement of competition, in going for what I wanted today vs what I wanted for good, the releases became shorter and shorter until there were none.
The consequence: Eventually that turned into missing the down contact all together.
So what did I do?
1. Acknowledged what I had done to cause the problem.
2. Made a commitment to accept nothing less than my criteria, which means:

a. If the rules of the particular run allow you to repeat the obstacle, I redo it until she gets it right.
b. If the rules of the particular run do not allow you to repeat, then I end the run.

3. Followed through on that commitment
The result:
Maebe missed her next contact. I made her run it again. She realized I was holding her to her criteria. She did not miss any contacts the rest of the trial.
The lesson:
Hold true to your criteria. If you make compromises regarding what is important to you long term in order to make a short term gain, you won’t achieve what you really want.