Sunday Seminar Stuff, and Weather.

Went to Calgary on Sunday for a one day seminar with Terry Simons. It was great, and as usual Terry entertained us all. There is something about him that makes him easy to relate to, and he is a fantastic teacher. We ran four courses, and then picked them apart and ran them again (or portions of them)

I was really pleased with Wicca- she got every weave entry, and stuck her contacts, and listened well. I wasn't happy with myself however. I got lost on three of the four courses. Nice eh? My memory has sucked for a while, but this is pretty ridiculous. I know that with the tooth pain and the advil my brain is a little foggy. Anyway, I am going to try to do as many longer sequences and courses that I can between now and Regionals to get my brain working properly.

It was a great day, and I got a few tips about my timing, and just general information. He is all about doing what works for the dog and taking into account the actual dynamic of the dog. He doesn't try to squish all dogs into one "box" so to speak. For example with a dog like Wicca- who is 6 years old and is not going to change much at this point, he thinks I should stop trying to make her bend over (and keep the bar up) the bar. Rather i should signal my turn when she's landed. One of our weak points right now are lead out pivots for this reason. I have been trying, and trying to get the turn before she takes off but the bar comes down nearly every time. By signaling my turn after she's landed I've only lost a second or two, and kept the bar. He's told me this before but I think I actually get it now. If this was a dog with longer legs, and better structure then yes, fix the jumping. But this particular dog is not going to change so I have to. Makes sense eh?

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I was glad to have gone. I originally was going for two days but had to pull for the Monday because Boone can't play yet. He does seem to be on the mend though, and i haven't seen any hitching in the past few days...

Oh, and the weather really sucks here. Not sure about the rest of the world but this is pretty abnormal even for us. LOTS of really nasty wind, and rain. We don't get much rain here so it's pretty strange. We are used to wind though, but 100km/hr winds two days in a row is a but ridiculous....

hopefully the flickering lights doesn't mean we are going to lose power....