Tired Bean

Very productive flyball training session today. Although we were working the dogs in each team together, we mainly worked on individual stuff. Dylan did some jump-box-6 jumps back. Which is exhausting for me but really gives him a workout! It also encourages him to chase me back; he has always come back off the box faster than he goes up, but it never hurts to drill his recalls more.

Rio did some recalls off the box with a stride regulator in, which was fun! I love seeing her do this, she’s only 7 months old but it’s a restrained recall with a few props and she does 5 recalls maximum. Her first two were with the stride regulator at 13ft, supposedly adjusted for her puppy stride, but she was having to shorten up a lot for that, so we dropped it at 15ft and that worked perfectly. I’m very happy with this method of training so far as Rio already understands her “ready set go”, pushes off the box and is starting to stride properly. That’s with maybe 15 recalls in total and no equipment other than the box to push from.

Mollie did some recalls and looked sound as a bell, I’m so pleased that she’s back on her feet. We can’t be 100% sure what the lump in her muscle is without going in (which we don’t want to do if we can help it!) but it is leaning towards being scar tissue with the way she’s recovered. It was good to see Bailey is back on form as well after last weekend!

After we got home from flyball, Rio and I toodled up to Springers Spring Fling. This show is just up the road from me but I didn’t want to enter Dylan in anything before our big 3-day at Easter. It’s also a bit awkward as I didn’t leave this club amiably all those years ago, although I’m still friends with a lot of people who train there. But I wanted to support some of our training buddies, and it was a good opportunity to take Rio to a show and focus on her alone.

Our friends all did great, and Rio enjoyed her meet-and-greet! She did freak out at the tannoy a little bit, but as soon as it stopped she forgot about it and resumed her bouncy explorations. She also met the adorable Eddie Beagle, who is a month younger than Rio and can kick her ass in play-games already. What a star! Of course, nobody could believe Rio is an Aussie, but she doesn’t look like one at the moment so maybe I can forgive them. She was exhausted by the end of the afternoon, flyball and a show in one day is tiring stuff.

She’s going tent shopping and then to Pets at Home tomorrow with Kim, somehow my weekends off end up busier than the weekends I’m competing!