Time Well Spent

Dylan came to training and did some training, for once. It was nice. He’s so easy to run, even if he can’t turn or jump nicely. Comfy pair of socks, well washed and groomed this week, with his paws trimmed and nails cut. Does exactly what I expect when I expect it.

His dogwalk(s) were lovely this week, as they always are at training. I live in hope that he will run the same way at Wilmslow, but don’t expect it to be so. His jumping is hit and miss, and I expect that will be worse at the weekend. It usually is. We’ll see.

Not agility related, but I think his eyesight may be deteriorating. Just little tiny things that he misses, and that he wouldn’t have missed a year ago. He worries me. He also makes me happy. Especially right now, he is very soft and plush with freshly bathed coat.

Rio also came to training, and did a little bit of training, but not very much. She didn’t want to take any breaks this week. She insisted on continuing to work. I ask her to take a break, she offers a down, which is her default “I wanna do stuff” position. Ok, Ri makes the rules.

I wanted to get her onto the dogwalk again; we haven’t done it in a while and she was still very hesitant then. This time, I took inspiration from her seesaw training, and applied liberal quantities of food. Magic! She did her first dogwalks in sequence. She powers up the upplank and jumps the apex, and then slows down. Not ideal. It’s not slow overall, but I would like to keep her running through. As her her confidence grows hopefully her speed will as well. It has everywhere else.

It is so nice to run a dog who can jump. She is always fluid, always extended, always bouncing on smaller distances. It’ll take some getting used to, the bouncing, and I need to adjust my handling to accomodate. Not something I had to worry about with Dylan. I don’t know that she’s faster than Dyl but she is smoother.

I need to work on her waits. She’s developing the vulture sit.