A Long Road Ahead

Yesterday my hubby was good enough to drive me to the obedience fun match and video Blitz and Moto's novice runs. Surprisingly, it was Moto who excelled and Blitz who concerned me. We are five weeks away from our show and I discovered just how much work is ahead of us if we want to qualify, let alone do well!
The match was in the afternoon, and all five dogs had had a good romp in the morning. I believe this came into play for Blitz as when I got him out and warmed him up, I could tell his energy level was low. Blitz will NEVER give a sluggish performance - in his case, he cannot concentrate on the work at hand and becomes distracted. I struggled to get his attention and our heeling pattern on-lead was very sloppy. I wanted to try him off-lead and by the first turn he wasn't even looking and went extremely wide on the about turn. So much so I went to reach for his ruff and grab him. We stopped, I put on a light lead and we finished the heeling in a bit better shape. SFE and recall went fine, as well as his finish.
His long sits and downs were very scary as he reached to sniff the dogs on either side (never moved) but I did not like this new development. So, I decided to do another long sit and down with the next group. On that second sit he went down in 30 seconds.
With that being said, it's really not his fault but mine, I need to get him out and help "season" him to many distractions. That, and I need to be vigilant about his energy and make sure he doesn't use it up prior to getting into the ring.
Moto, on the other hand, did very nicely! His performance too wasn't perfect but then again I'm not really training hard since the accident. His attention was really nice and he did his SFE, recall front and finish in snappy order (off just a hair but our focus is still on attitude). His long sit and down were rock solid.
So, for Mr. Blitz I need to take him out and train him every day in a shopping center or where there is activity. I'm going to need to find sit and down opportunities and we need to work this.
What Mr. Blitz is going to need to be responsible for is stepping up when he is able to and try his hardest. I know he will do this as he has a fantastic work ethic. He just hasn't been told what he needs to do.
Meantime I'm exhausted from the weekend so we will rest today and hit it tomorrow. My body is still healing but I do find I'm able to do more each week such as yesterday I did all the laundry - a major victory!