Dogs are doing good. Loving all the beach time. Starlet is the happiest I have ever seen her, gets lots of treats from the students at classes and a general life without rules or expectations. She is the teacher of the most lessons and the biggest being, it's okay to say "I don't think you like agility, so let's just go on a walk." Vic also doing good, had a super Regionals, missed a GP bye, because I didn't look back on the dogwalk and he hadn't reached the yellow when I released. First missed dogwalk ever. :-) Did get the Steeplechase bye, but I don't know that I'll bother running him in it at Cynosports, he's just not a drag race type of boy. He made the podium in Biathlon, I just love those courses. Some more than others, caught a little flack about putting up the MC Jumpers course from Regional on FB and calling it "lame", but well, it was. Vic is such a great dog, my soulmate of a teammate. Rich is looking good. The boy is what Angela predicted, "Freaky Fast and Freaky Good". The dogwalk, well, I fully expect to have a full-time stop on it eventually, but for now we continue on. He has once again decided 3 strides should be enough, well, it's 3 and a skippy step or two. I tried to get him back to a 4-stride behavior (how do people get there dogs to do it in 5 strides?!?!?!), but that just messed with my head, so now we're back to "if it doesn't look crazy, he has good separation and deep in yellow...reward". He actually does have a really lovely turn into the tunnel off the dogwalk and seems to be getting better with different exits. Who knows, he seems to understand where to put his feet... At least we got our frame and it's a nice frame, I really do love his frame.
I went back to Clean Run again last month. Such a cool group of people and I had fun getting some blind cross virgins to give them a go on the International day. I think they felt safe, since I don't do many myself, but there are places where they're the best option. Also interesting to talk about the locations of my blinds with that crew. I am in no way fluent in Greg D, but some of those folks REALLY understand the system and more importantly, understand the why's of how it works, which explains why I am drawn to some blinds more than others. I also learned last month that I am teaching a Power Paws Camp again. Love Camp, should be very fun and expect this will be my last year, since 3 years is a long time to be there. I'm hoping I can wrangle some time with Anthony this year with Rich, I want Rich to be super strong in classic handling, before seeing anything too fancy (other than blinds off the frame, I need those now).
Last weekend I went up to Power Paws. So luxurious to be there on a weekend! Great time, watched some WAO with Nancy, we trained the puppies and Saturday we took turns doing set ups for a workshop. Very fun. Rich did much better than I expected. He looks more trained than I think he is, but well, my handling is simple, so I'd like to think it's easy for him to understand my cues. We have rear cross homework and some stuff to do with 2 jumps to start addressing the bars. Plus all the other stuff that baby dogs have to learn, but it's all fun and Rich is brilliant, so it feels so easy. Just love my baby dog! Here's video from Saturday:
I think his first show could be on his 18 month b-day, if not then, it will be at Bay Team over the 4th of July (the following weekend), so EXCITING!!!!
