Perspective

I finally watched some video my partner took for me last weekend. What I noticed was that although I was terribly confused about what I was supposed to do during some of it, Max's tail was always wagging and he happily did whatever I asked him to do. That makes me feel better about doing such an intense weekend with him.

I've been focusing a lot on just playing with toys this week with both dogs. I did have to bring out the food rewards for weave pole practice with Max though. We have just moved up to four weave poles and they are staggered. Today was only the second time we've practiced and he seems to be able to find the entrance without much of a problem. I even tried putting him over a jump and having him find the entrance and he did awesome!

Agility Weekend

It was good. Intense, fun, great people, incredible dogs. It was a lot for both Max and I to take in. I screwed up a handling exercise so badly (which caused him to knock poles) that Max just sat down and looked at me. If looks could talk he would have said "excuse me lady - I'm not moving until YOU can get your act together" - and that was the G rated version! Being the sweetheart he is he forgave me though and consented to come out and play again when I was being more sensible. I'm afraid this weekend, although good for me may have set Max back but my own trainer doesn't think so. I hope she's right.

I am in a bit of a training meltdown right now though. In an effort to encourage Max to be more playful and build his drive I've let some of my training go - for instance I know let him jump up on me. I am afraid he's becoming a bit of a brat (and he's not anymore playful) *sigh*. Rylie has such a frisbee/ball/stick obsession that he won't play with any other toys anymore. What's more - if any of those are in the vicinity his brain takes a holiday.

I thought training was going so well with both boys and now I think I suck as a trainer and I just have generally good dogs.

Max and I are going to agility camp this weekend. I'm really excited even though I know that I will be one of the greenest of the green students there. Everybody has to start sometime right?

I'm hoping to gain some handling skills - I tend to get confused easily and Max has the patience of a saint. I love my boy. He did something on class Monday hat I didn't think too much of at the time but impresses me a lot in thinking about it. We were trying to do a complex (for us) sequence - I was waiting for him to look at the jump before releasing him and he wanted to look at me. When he finally looked at the jump I released him - he didn't do the jump but ran to me. My instructor said "Debbie - he wasn't looking at the jump - there was a cat on the bale of hay and it moved". Now I think "Wow - he didn't even consider chasing the cat"! We finally did manage the sequence we were working on.