Baby Dog Milestones

Swimming with friends

There are so many milestones to reach with a baby dog.  Now Rain has turned 16 months she is learning all these really cool things as part of her agility dog journey.  Her natural ability knows no bounds with her love of training and willingness to learn new things.  I started her weaver training when she turned 15 months old and 4 weeks on she is doing 12 straight.  She still has to concentrate very hard though!  She picked the concept up really quickly and just naturally seems to know to look for the next opening.  Makes my life much easier.  Her running dog walk is going well and I'm happy where we are at with it.  The good phases seem to be happening more and the less good phases less often.  The dog walk is about three quarters high now and my goal is to have it full height by January.  I feel like she understands the concept.  We had a couple of weeks that were just a disaster, had a break and then came back to it a couple of weeks later.  When we came back to it her hits were really good.  So possibly a lesson in there somewhere.  I'm still adding in different things, I've just added the tunnel underneath etc.  Not sure if it will be ready for February but we'll just see how it goes.  My aim was to get the A-Frame out once I'm happy with the full height dog walk.  So possibly January all going well.

The hot weather is playing havoc with getting a lot of training done.  Most evenings at the moment we only get five minutes in before we are both too hot.  Apparently 40 degree days are the new norm for Perth this summer.  For the evenings that are stinkers I just pick something quick and easy that we can work on, even heel work for something different.  Rain doesn't care as long as she is doing something.  During the week when I'm working if is pretty difficult to go down the beach so we try and make sure to get to the beach or river every weekend for decompression and relaxation.  Having a dog who has such a wonderful easy going temperament has meant going to places where other people are dogs are is something we can do again.  And I'm so glad.  Being able to meet up with friends and take the dogs to interesting places is something I have really missed.

We had a great time at the Dave Munnings seminar back in October.  Dave is such a good presenter and I love his enthusiasm and passion.  Rain was amazing again and blew me away with what she was able to put together.  It was a really warm day and the sessions were short with swims in the dam in between.  Each time it was her turn to work she gave me 110%.  Those foundation skills make all the difference.  We rarely do jump/handling work more than once a week yet her understanding of the different maneuvers is pretty amazing.   Dave's partner Dan Shaw is here in May next year so looking forward to more really fun seminars with Rain in 2020.

The milestone for Rain to have her first trial is inching closer.  She was officially measured this month coming in at 52cms.  Pretty much what I thought she'd be.  Rain is quite touchy so I did quite a lot of work leading up to getting measured so she was used to having something go over her shoulder.  Like the perfect girl that she is she stood like a statue.  At this stage I hope that her first trial will be in Albany in February.  Simone and I are judging so I will enter Rain the classes that Simone is doing.  Then I know Rain's first novice courses will be awesome and not tight and horrible.  Then probably the Western Classic in March.  She'll definitely be entered in Novice Jumping and I guess we'll see about Novice Agility.  Either way I can't wait to compete with this super special girl 💓