Back to Basics

60 days to go...

Time seems to be running out quickly now, and I still have SO much to do.

Over the last weekend from Sat-Tues I spent a wonderful four days auditing training days with Lynda Orton-Hill. Wow. I knew the basics of shaping and the associated Say Yes games but these four days really helped to bring it all together and how the foundation stuff sets the basis for an excellent agility dog. It made me realise the stuff I have been skipping over like crate games, working more on tug drive, rear end awareness and so on is so much more than just games. As with the days we did last year with Greg and Laura Derrett more often than not it was a case of thinkg 'Duh, that's SO obvious - why didn't *I* make that connection?' It will definitely be altering the areas I emphasise in my training sessions from this point on.

I haven't re-read my notes yet as haven't had time, so may have some more observations to make later, but for the time being one of the things I liked best was Lynda's insistence that all training be FAST and FUN - so from the moment the dog is released from the crate it is fun and play all the way to wherever your training exercise is, then all the way back once it is done. And the point that since dogs run agility at a high level of arousal, you need to make sure to train them at a high level of arousal also (rather than trying to calm them down before training/trialling). I can already see how this will apply to multiple other situations - Billie's show training for example - I will now be sure to get her very excited before we do any show training, so we will both be more set to cope with the more exciting arena of an actual show ring when we go back to that (not til after Nationals I think as all my focus is on the boys currently).

My Nationals entries have been posted so now it is official - the boys are entered in all the Open and Novice classes, so hopefully I can get them to that point in 60 days. I think Novice we should be ok... perhaps Open was a bit optimistic of me, but you never know. I feel much more confident, having done Lynda's training days, of which direction I need to go now.

Watch this space :)