Things to Do at Christmas
Rio did her first half-course this week and I was very happy. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t clean, but it was awesome. I love it when things start to come together. It was also her first time out in the big-dog classes, and she was very very excited to be there. We lost a bit of self-control in watching, but she was focused and ready to roll as soon as we set up to start working, and it shows how much she has matured. Even 3months ago she wouldn’t have been able to focus her excitement into agility and not into visiting the other dogs, so she is growing up and we are making progress!
I need to work on sending her down lines some more, but that might involve some other remedial work since she won’t send to dead toys (BORING) or to other people holding toys (BORING), she will only chase toys I throw or toys I’m holding since that = tugging with me, which is apparently the only good thing. I sort of appreciate her mummy’s girl attitude, but I do wish she’d engage with some other people too. Anyone want to volunteer to teach the puppy to tug with them?
In the meantime, our mission over the holiday is to learn to weave. Rio doesn’t know that yet, but it starts tomorrow! My plan was always to use the channel weaves again; I’ve always been happy with Dylan’s weaves, he has great entries and independence, is fast and rarely pops. Unfortunately our old channels are a bit too old and battered now to be upgraded to the new spacing, so I’m left with the V-Weaves instead. Kim learnt to weave on V’s and all things considered she always had fairly solid weaves, not hugely independent but it wasn’t something I ever proofed with her (ignorance was bliss!), her entries were always reasonable and for her size and build, she was reasonably nippy through.
Rio won’t actually be learning on V-Weaves, my intention is currently to do something like a combination of methods, starting off with some 2×2 entries and see how we go. I’m also going to try and video all her sessions, as a learning process for me as much as anything!