i havent forgotten

that i need to update about this weekend ! i will, i swear!

last night we had training. i worked berlin on the side during novice class, and worked mercury a bit during open (mostly retrieves, speed, and attitude) before rah got to do utility.

berlin we worked a lot on finishes. here is a video of one of the finishes- while she's got the height, i need to eliminate that head down spot because that one little split second she looks away is unacceptable... im glad i got it on video because i can see it now. i experimented with bringing my hand back up to heel but down gets her straighter.



we worked some heeling and some fronts. she's funny because at some point i must have clicked a crooked front and she experiments when we are working them to see if her butt can go just a little to the right (her right) before she straightens it. i will try to use my leg to keep the pressure on that side to eliminate it - she did some nice lateral moving fronts and some nice rotating around the clock - now to bring that accuracy at distance!

here is heeling for her - overall this is heads and tails above where i was with her - lydia said she looks great, her ears are up and i'd say 90% of the time she's got her attention on me :) (i can still see her mentally check out a few places, even if her head and ears are at me - an act that rah has perfected, since he can look like he's paying attention to me, head straight up, but his brain is no where on the exercise at hand). i want to tighten up her about turns (and that is something we work constantly) but this was without practice and reminding, so its nice to see that she CAN do it. im happy with the lefts but i do need to work more on footwork, and i want more movement of her hind end during the left - we worked that later and she did nice (over-corrected even, which i am happy with!).





overally i was happy. she's got some entries in the beginning of march in an asca trial, and i think ill bring her out in april...

rah's utility class - started with moving stands and he moved on the first one and terry had his remote and i said a second "freeze" the exact moment that he got a stim - PERFECT timing and he was solid. he did get corrected for not locking up immediately, but the minute he got it he was like OH you mean DO NOT MOVE? (why can't my dogs do things that involve being still??).

go outs were nice - full 70 feet to the agility equipment, and i got a "long distance" (ok 25-30 foot) "go zoom" (touch the stanchion) on one he was going to pull up on! he marked and he ran and we worked on the ever present rah using the gate to pull up (he's not pulling up at the jumps, but he knows he cant go through the gates so he pulls up a bit to be turned and i constantly battle that...)... jumps and fronts/finishes were nice. we played with remote sends and rah sucked at that :) he needs his mark to know where to go.

articles - we were able to recreate the mistakes from this show - worked them in a line and all articles were in the front. rah nailed the first two, and when we moved to article 3 and 4, he made mistakes on both. his correction (ah ah, no x 3 - straight out of ATC) made him fly back to the pile to get the correct one. he kept grabbing article 5 leather - so i aired them all out at the center today - and on the last send he went to take the wrong article, got 2 steps out of the pile, and went WAIT this isn't right and went back to find the right pile. not exactly how i wanted articles to be done, but at least he understood he made a mistake and corrected himself, and that's a step! when he blows articles, he blows them big and i truly have very little control over the decision he makes there (what exactly goes on at the pile and what he smells isn't me) so i have to give him the confidence that he can be wrong and fix it... i'd take those points if it gives me a run!

signals were funny - again able to distract him into a mistake - he had toys and cookies thrown in front of him while i signalled him and i couldnt get him to come in from the sit - he ran to kathy because he knew he was going to make a wrong choice. i almost peed my pants there and we set it up again and he came in, good boy!

gloves - need to work pivots on my part - and i dont know, im giving up on the glove shaking? just bring them back and give them to me...

had a good chuckle about the people they judged this weekend, discussed more puppy plans (puppies due 24th-26th!) and time to get the whelping box over here, and messed around with puppy names again...

ok i will try to do the show update soon. berlin has an agility private today and class again tonight.