Summer Training

Trained without being swamped by 300 layers of clothing this week, it was great. Forgot what naughty dogs I have though, both Dylan and Rio jump up at me all the time. My arms were streaked with sand by the end of the session, not really the look I was going for this summer.

Really happy with Rio, she managed a full session with full focus, despite the fact that a few of the other puppies were feeling happy and did a few mad laps. We were working over 2 jumps – tunnel – 2 jumps and she was great, and then we did a few recalls through a tunnel to finish with. I was really pleased with her progress, I love seeing our homework paying off! We are starting to understand each other better in terms of agility as well, she really wanted to work with me last night and whilst waiting we did play for a while with no toys/treats at all.

She was allowed to say hi to Gibbs as a reward for her good behaviour. Gibbs is a gorgeous 11 month old Working Cocker who is very polite and adorable, I’m hoping Rio can learn some manners from him, maybe by osmosis.

I kept Dylan on some small, straightforward, sequences with a variety of jump heights. The more he did the better he looked, his jumping and striding smoothed out as we worked and he got more comfortable. He did this last time he was adjusted as well, he likes to cautiously check that everything is working and is pain-free before he starts to really kick up a gear. It works for me, as long as he’s happy. We also did a little Aframe work. I’ve toyed with the idea of retraining Dyl onto a running Aframe since we aren’t competing much this summer anyway. I’d also like Rio to have a running Aframe, so it will be good practise for me, and if it goes wrong, I can always put Dylan back to a 2o2o (he’s a good boy, and he has a different command word for running contacts). I probably need to video him a few times before I make a decision, but Dyl could do with a slightly faster Aframe and it will be a fun project for me.