Another State
Agility Trial is behind us and unfortunately for me it was as big of a disaster
as last year for Cassie and me. Things had been going so well with Cassie
leading up to it but on the weekend she did not want to be there in any way,
shape or form. In her defence Saturday was most definitely not pappy
running weather (nor person running weather for that matter…) with the day
hitting a top of 33 degrees. The following day, while humid was much
better but she still wasn’t interested. She was so not into it that any
time I got her out to see what mood she was in she just turned her back on
me. Hard to be much clearer about her intentions than that! The
only saving grace for the weekend was getting to run Sue’s magnificent Border
Collie Dan. Dan may be nine years old and only coming out for some fun as
his love of agility is no less than it has ever been, but he gave me one of the
most fun runs I have ever had. Not only going clear but coming second by just
over 0.1sec to another super dog who is probably a good six years or so younger
than him.
It was hard to
not feel pretty down after the weekend about where Cassie and I are at.
The State Trial was most definitely not a confidence building exercises with
Nationals all of four weeks away. Not much I can do at this point as I’m
really running out of time. So between now and when we leave I will
simply strip everything back for her, make it really easy and try and re-inject
some fun which we appear to have lost. My main concern is that I’ve
pushed her too quickly and overwhelmed her which is unfortunately very easy to
do. I was trying to build some skills so we’ll have some hope of tackling
the Masters courses, but I’m going to have to abandon that and go back to very
easy only. When it comes down to it, I would rather her be happy and
stuff every course up than for her to not want to run at all. She sure
doesn’t make it easy for me and no one will ever be able to accuse me of taking
her ability for granted! I truly cherish every good run I have with
her. I'm just so disappointed that I can't be better for her and she so
deserves for everyone to see just how amazing she is.
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| Veto - 16 months |
I am very
thankful that my youngster is helping to make me feel slightly less hopeless as
a dog trainer. I am enjoying every moment of bringing him along and
watching him grow in confidence and skill level. Thanks to a timely
Suprelorin implant his desire to pee on everything has definitely
decreased. While I don’t trust him completely yet and choose his off
leash time carefully, I can at least now be confident enough to give it a
try. Last week for the first time ever at the Dogs West grounds I was
brave enough to attempt a full sequence with him at training and was extremely
surprised that he made what was well and truly masters level seem easy.
His understanding of the verbals/handling at this point is pretty good and if I
ever had any doubts about committing to the H360 methodology his response to it
has erased any questions I might have had around using it.
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| Home Agility Arena - 2016 |
I’m happy with
his progress with both the running dog walk and running A-frame. A bit of
work still do be done on tight turns but for novice level what we have now I’m
very pleased with and we'll keep working on the rest. I have started introducing
the tyre, spread and broad jump with a bit of beginning level see-saw
work. This month I also added in some compression jumps grids to see how
he managed going from big strides back to small and vice-versa. Overall I
was impressed with how he managed them and I’ve not seen anything to doubt that
he will be able to handle whatever he comes across. His turning has
improved out of sight. I think most likely due to the exercise program I
have all of them on now. He used to be such a skinny little weed but the
core strengthening has given him a real barrel down his middle and it’s hard
not to think that it has played a big part in his improved jumping
skills. I hadn't planned it but at last weekend’s trial the
opportunity arose to get him measured and he came in pretty much spot on what I
thought he would be at 54cms. Lots of people had thought he might be a
600 height dog but he is only slightly taller than Sonic who is 53cms. So
into 500 he goes.
The only thing
that has defeated me so far with his training is getting Veto to single stride
his weavers. It is just not a happening thing. But I’m fairly
certain the issue is his structure which very much takes after his
mother. Being cattle lines they simply do not have the angulation that you
see in the working sheep lines. So I’m pretty sure that his inability to
single stride is in direct relation to his lack of angulation.
Fortunately his bounce stride looks really comfortable and even at this early
stage is a decent speed. The other day I set up 12 straight poles just to see
how he went. He managed the straight weaves really well but had to
R-E-A-L-L-Y concentrate and I couldn't go in front of him or it all fell apart
and he couldn't stay in them! I'll stop being mean for a while and take
it back to 8, proof some more and then work our way back up to 12. It's
another two months before he can trial so no rush with those. Most
importantly we are having an awesome time!
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