Monday, January 25, 2010

Off and Training...

Oh my... with the exception of tracking we are signed up to participate in our several performance venues (obedience, agility, and herding) in the next few weeks. We managed during the past few days to get some much training/practice time.

Agility
- It poured Wednesday night so agility was canceled. However, Grace practiced weaves at Linda's on Saturday along with the contact equipment that didn't require much running in the slippery mud. Linda rolled the ball for Grace to help her focus forward on weaving. Grace then also practiced 2X2 weaves with Tracey on Sunday - Tracey is making her figure the weaves out for herself which is interesting to watch. Grace wants to play... Tracey wants Grace to work.

Herding - Grace played stock dog on Saturday morning by slogging through the mud and rounding up the sheep out of the back pasture at Linda's (without any help from Tap). Then Grace did the calmer herding that she is learning around the sheep. We need to continue to improve her wait in all venues - Grace needs to learn to sit still while there is movement occurring around her. For our lesson Grace was herding 3 very pregnant ewes - one of the ewes gave birth on Sunday to Linda's first lamb for 2010.

Obedience
- Thursday night at the LCCOC obedience classes and on Sunday at the BREC Sharp Road Park's tennis court we met Tracey for obedience training. This coming weekend Bern is entered in Open in Alexandria. He is getting more reliable on the drop, retrieves, and broad jump but it needs lots of work before Saturday. Grace practiced sitting still while movement was happening... she vibrates but is learning some control.

Tracking - Bern ran a short track Sunday afternoon. He needs lots of work on tracks that I know exactly where they are so I can praise/encourage him for tracking and fuss when he goofs around. He tracks great when he is working... he just doesn't have much work ethic with his tracking harness on. He has learned to "heel" for obedience which required more focus than he wanted to give at first so I think he can learn to focus on tracking too.