Waiting

Maintaining the “optional working” rule is difficult, sometimes. I know it’s the right thing to do, but this week Rio started class by visiting all the other dogs. She got a second chance to work, but failed to take it, so she headed straight back to the car. That’s a very short training session. I know this is the right thing to do for me; I do not have the patience to try and convince a dog to work with me, and I don’t want to put Rio in a situation where I am stressing and impatient.

However, because Dylan only did 15 minutes of flatwork, and our final class was missing the usual people due to the football (I don’t even know), I got Rio back out for another try. I was dithering all evening over whether this was a good idea, and I’ll admit it probably wasn’t motivated by the “right” reasons: I wanted to her to get some exercise and tire herself out a little bit. As it was, I let her off lead in the arena and she thought about working with me, but decided Diva looked way more fun, although D was on lead and actually boring. So I stood, and waited, and waited, and chatted to Emma … and Rio spent a minute or so giving off all kinds of calming signals (sniffing whilst pacing, curving in on Emma or me or the equipment, wall eyes) because she couldn’t work out what to do. I don’t like seeing her like that, but by constantly nagging at her to work, I’m not helping. She needs to think it through on her own, and she’s a smart cookie, so I trust her.*

After a minute, she decided to see if engaging would bring some joy. So she came to wigglebum at me, and did her “can we play tug?” dance, and when I said yes, she relaxed and switched on. So we worked for 10minutes, and she was awesome. We did some tunnel sends, some go-ons over a line of jumps (bumps instead of poles still, at this stage), and some beautiful 8″ kips. I love working with her, she runs fast but is surprisingly thoughtful, even if her legs get away from her sometimes.

I feel like I’m sometimes asking too much of her at her age. She’s at that weird age where she has very mature dog moments, and then very puppyish moments, often right next to one another. I think she will get more from doing bits of training here and there now, rather than waiting and not doing anything until she is older, because when she is in focused, working mode, we both have a great time and she is amazing. It’s good for me if nothing else, I’m getting a lot of practise at recognising when I am not in the right mental state for training.

Dylan was also amazing, bless him. He was on the flat only, no poles, and was very excited to be at training. He even thought about playing with Diva! His wing wraps are so beautiful on the flat, he hugs the wing so tightly. As soon as there is a pole in – even at 8″ – it falls apart completely. I’m living with that now, so long as he’s happy. We finished up with one run over the seesaw, which was also beautiful. He was a good boy!

*I really do trust her, which surprised me as much as anyone. It feels like we’ve known each other for a lot longer than 6 months. It’s taken Dylan and I years to learn to trust one another; our partnership is a created thing, something built and put together every day. Maybe out of Lego, that seems like it would be Dyl’s kinda thing. Kim and I have a much more organic relationship. I think Rio and I maybe have a bit of both right now. It seems to work.