Ten Months

Veto has hit double digits and is turning into a really stunning looking young dog.  He has even grown into those ginormous ears...  He is getting more powerful and driven as he gains confidence.  He has been elevated to almost grown up status which means he can have free time in the house now with the other dogs.  He loses his shit on occasion when his brain explodes with excitement and we need to have a chat about chilling out but overall he's way better at putting his sensible boy shoes on.

Training is continuing to be lots of fun.  He used to get bored doing wraps but now he loves them and fights me to drive round the traffic cones.  I love his understanding of wraps and I'm working hard on maintaining that lovely flexibility.  I'm mixing things up by doing some H360 work interchanged with grid work.  I wanted to spend some time focusing on grids to teach him to think about his striding and figuring out how many strides to put between jump bumps, an important skill to have.  Dog walk work is continuing along nicely.  We have good and bad sessions but overall I'm still happy with how he is progressing.  The dog walk is nice and low, probably only a foot off the ground so no danger if he does come off and it will stay about that height until he is 12 months old.  So far I love his turns.  I only hope I can keep them... shortly will be time to start proofing the performance before the dog walk goes up.

I'm trying not to only focus on agility stuff even though sometimes its hard not to, so with the addition of a FitBone and more FitPaws bits and pieces we are working on building strength as well as working through the Recallers program.  So plenty to do over the next couple of months before he reaches his first birthday.

Cassie's progress is still moving in the right direction.  We did another NFC run a couple of weeks ago and in both runs I did 7 - 8 obstacles with her with no problems what so ever.  She still manages to freak me out on the start line with an expression on her face that leaves me totally guessing as to what may unfold.  But for both her runs once she took off she was flying and did everything I asked.  So we will continue forward on this path and stay optimistic about our chances to make the Nationals next year.  We have I think three trials left this year so some more opportunities for NFC before it gets a bit more serious next year.  Lots of work to do over summer!