Outreach day 1

I am typing this on my blackberry, so I apolagise for any spelling errors. It likely has more to do with the itty bitty buttons than my ability to spell.

Anyway, day one of outreach is over and I am tired- but again came away with some great reminders.

Interestingly enough I never even considered bringing Boone to the seminar until Sarah asked me about it. Turns out today was perfect for him! He did very well, and I got some pretty good ideas for him.

We started with a challenge course from a recent trial. It was very tricky and beyond Boones skills, but we did pretty well. He had a hard time weaving- I think it is the bases on the crappy poles...

After that we talked about handling and what we expect from our dogs. We talked about specifics like the differences between motion, physical, positional and verbal cues. It was a great discussion and really helped some of the new people understand more.

The next exercise was focused on decel and basic handling...this was a perfect exercise for boone as he doesn't always pick up on my decel. He did pretty well although had a hard time with really tight rear crosses.

My favorite part of the day was the last two exercises- we did some double box work focusing on positional cues. Boone had had enough and was pretty flaky. I didn't get through all the exercises with him. I brought him back after a break with a higher value reward and worked through it- but I could definitly feel my frustration rising and his focus dissapear.

The very last exercise I brought Wicca out for- she was a little wild and smashed almost every bar the first time...the second time she was better and so was I. Kim pointed out some valuable tips about rear crosses, and we ended with some pretty good success. It had a pretty simple layout but lots of handling choices. It was fun.

It felt like a really long afternoon and the dogs and I are pretty tired. I think we will sleep good tonite!

I wasn't going to blog tonite but am not tired enough to sleep and thought I might aswell get it out while its fresh in my mind!