Sunday, August 23, 2009

the match today...

so, drove out to the match today. got there about 20 minutes before i was scheduled to go in, to find out that like many other places - we had a lot of no shows and they were tossing people in the ring left and right. i hate being unorganized - while it gets me out of there early, it messes up my plans.

another pet peeve - it hit almost 90 here today, and while they advertised ac, it didn't feel like it was on!

anyway, they were immediately ready for berlin - i hadnt even taken her out to pee! i played some games with her outside the ring and then just worked on ring entrances, set ups, and brief spurts of heeling. she didnt want her to do a SFE, so we worked on that,and played recall games. immediately into stays, and she did fine.

i got rah out,since i was told he was next in open - then they are calling me into novice again! i didnt have time to get berlin out, so i brought rah in for a novice run. missed the first halt (like always - GOTTA WORK ON THIS) and he was high as a kite with little to no warm up. not bad!

did open stays, where he went down on his sit to lick himself?!?!?!?!!!?!? so he earned himself a 5 minute sit. not going to worry about this - he held his sit for 5 minutes afterwards while everyone else did the down, and he literally licked himself in the ring, something he's never done - because he was laying on his side with his leg up.

open run - heeling not bad, drop good. worked the fronts a lot and he wasnt doing too badly, nice pickups. he keeps missing his straight front on the broad jump, so ill have to work on that. used the extra time we had in the ring to play retrieve games.

then rah had utility - started with signals. a dog was barking while i stood him, so he wasnt paying attention to me. i went back to him and he knew he had been bad so he tried to goof off, i got him back and we did it again. second time he followed me, third time was good.

articles were PERFECT - i told him "calm, easy, calm, easy" before we did it, and he even managed to do it with a man standing by the pile!! fronts were off, but good for him!

gloves - not bad, but he's not completing the pivot. he got the right glove and gave me a pretty good front. need to work those pivots!

moving stand - let the man do the exam, but then couldnt do the call to heel??? ha ha, something he hasnt had in forever! (just like he's never done a finish on the gloves!)

time for go outs - did 3/4 length with the ball, and he ran out noncommitted (even though i thought he had it locked), but he did find the spot. sent him a second time, and tried the high jump but he ticked it - twice! worked him just getting him to clear the jump and our time was up.

second utility run through, i just worked go outs and pivots - no jumping. he was really locking onto the ball and staring nicely (especially when i remember to look at the ball too, instead of him!), and i did one without the ball and he turned and sat on a dime. finished him out with a few more to the ball, and then worked pivots.

all in all, a very hot day.

No comments: