I have just gotten through a busy week!
Tuesday evening I had Foundation Class Part 1 & 2. Both classes were outstanding. The traffic chaos that ensued after each class was hilarious (sorry guys). The snow was quite deep in Kirsten's drive, and that made it difficult for many of the cars to turn ( or even move! )! Luckily everyone gave a hand to push, pull, encourage and we got everyone out later rather than sooner.
Wednesday evening was agility. I teach 2 agility classes, a regular class and my Foundation Class. I love teaching the Foundation Agility Class - it consists of 5 handlers & their dogs. 4 of them have done 2 regular Foundation Classes with me and when they turned a year we started agility basics. They have worked on each piece of equipment separately until mastered, and are now putting them into sequences. All 5 handlers understand the responsibilities they have in the class, and to their dogs. I have 5-6 "stations" set out which are either small sequences, jumping training or single pieces of equipment. I work at one of the stations. Each handler has to plan their lesson, make sure they have a helper when they need one and be ready for working with me.
Saturday we had the Border Collie Club Show ( obedience, rally-o and breed ) now known as 4180 ;o) !!! Friday night we always spend 3-4 hours setting up - 1 huge sports hall has to be fully covered for the obedience, the other hall needs a fully covered ring for rally-o and mats for breed. Its hard work laying the carpets ( glad its not my full time job ) and I am usually pooped by the time we are done. I run the rally ring so I set up the course, got all the judging papers ready and went home. Tove & her BC always stay at my house for the BCK show - and luckily help with carpets and the hard work the evening before.
Saturday morning was an early start ( well early for me ). We arrived at the show just after 7 in the morning. The rally-o ran well - I had "hired" a ring manager so I could concentrate on Soda's obedience. I had entered One, but because of the huge amounts of snow I havent been able to do any obedience traininng :o( So I decided to work Soda instead. She did a great round but as she (still) hasnt learnt the scent we missed our points on that. In the rally she got a 95/100 in the advanced ( I forgot the course ) and Spooky got a 97/100 in the champion class. We finished the rally-o ring at 4ish, I drove home and walked the dogs and then came back to help with the clearing away ( including those famous carpets ). We went out for Burritto dinner. Next morning Tove went back to Samsø early ( it was her husband's birthday ) and I went back to bed until 13 :o)
That evening I decided to do something about the fact that training has been made difficult due to the snow. Inspired by Kickan, I have booked 3 hours from 9-12 every Monday and Friday at Hasselgaard - an indoor carpeted training venue - where I can train agility and freestyle. Perfect :-) Its cold, but indoors - and the equipment is easy to move around - so I can clear the floor for obedience/freestyle.
I went there the day after ( this past Monday). There was a good course set up - so I worked Trouble, Spooky then One in agility. It was nice as I could work short, specific training sessions with the boys - and repeat as many times as I needed. Each dog got 20 minutes including breaks - well invested training time. Trouble's running contacts were excellent there aswell as at home & NOA. Now I need to get the seesaw & weaves done, and he will be ready to compete. One was really good considering its a while ago he has done agility other than tiny bits. We worked on weave entrances, corners and pullthroughs. One will be competing on Sunday at VAS BCK.
When I cleared the equipment away I got Soda out and worked on our routine. I have had one specific issue with our routine. Soda has to open a treasure chest halfway through, which she had a hard time doing when it was part of a specific sequence but not otherwise. We have worked on that separately and to test my training I did the routine, sent her through a tunnel ( which she loves ) and asked her to "OPEN". Voila - by Jove - she GOT IT! I then did it several times in the sequence, even had food & toys on the floor infront of the chest, and a tunnel behind, and she opened the chest. HOORAY!
Tusday evening I had my Foundation Classes again at Kirsten's hall, and I did some training with Soda after the classes. Kirsten who is a regular Jim'll Fix It solved my brick in chest problem - to keep the chest from moving around. But woe is me who has to carry the chest around now - complete with heavy lead boat weights.
Tomorrow I will train at Hasselgaard again and I hope that Kirsten can dig her way out of her house so she will join me. Otherwise I train alone again awwwwww. But Kirsten will be competing with Speck aswell on Sunday - so perhaps she could start digging already now????
And I am now the proud owner of a Tefal Hot n Quick :o)
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