Run & Training

I have discovered a slight flaw in my well-considered fitness and conditioning plan, in that Kim is too smart for her own good. She now refuses to run for the first toy now, and will only run for the second, meaning Mollie is doing twice as much work. I probably should have seen that one coming, to be fair! Dylan has tried this a couple of times as well, but Dyl is easier to outwit, usually by pretending to have three toys, one toy, throwing it in different directions, etc, whereas Kim doesn’t fall for those kind of mean tricks. Mollie is clueless and still runs after every toy every time.

Kim hasn’t been agility training for 5-6 weeks, partially because we’ve redistributed people at agility training and now there isn’t as much time for me to run 2-3 dogs in the session. As I just have Dyl there at the moment (I haven’t trained with Jet for months now, but that’s the disadvantage of borrowing a dog!) I can concentrate solely on him, but because we only get limited chances to use the equipment, I have to be more focussed with what we do. Less impulsiveness on my part, more planned training.

Because we have more dogs in the session now, it’s also given me a chance to work on keeping Dylan relaxed whilst the other dogs work. Lots learnt in the past few weeks about stress and adrenalin levels, and I’ve tried to spend more time observing what the dogs are actually doing and then acting to encourage them to be calmer. I can’t eliminate stress completely but I do want the dogs to respond in a way that tells me they’re in control of the situation and handling the stress in a positive way. I’ve adjusted the way I handle a couple of things with Dylan and so far so good. It’s been quieter anyway!

I’m just torn at the moment on Dylan’s waits in the ring at Hare’n’Hounds this weekend; at training, I have a strict break-and-you’re-out policy, where we walk (cheerfully) away from the equipment if he breaks his wait. He has 98% solid waits at training, but no wait at all at competitions. I know that I need to follow through with this at shows, and consistently, and I also know that as I want to stay in n G5 for a while yet it makes perfect sense to do this now (at this show especially because I have Kim and Jet so I still get a chance to run some courses). I know that Dylan only does this because of my poor training. But it’s still very hard to do it, because I just tend to counter it with the “well I manage with Kim” argument in my head. Which is a stupid argument! I’ll see if I can be brave enough to walk away this weekend.