We Q'd in JWW, and it was brilliant :) Zoe was a little spacey, but not nearly as much as she had been the weekend prior. And...it was our fastest course by YPS ever! I think that we would have done even better in Standard had I not made one teensy little mistake and pulled her off of a jump, and had she actually seen the tunnel at the end of the course. It was at a really wierd angle and dog after dog missed it and just ran straight past. Oh well, we'll try again in January :)
At some point next week I'll post some pics of Zoe and Boomer doing some obedience. Zoe is trained through Open and half of Utility, we just need to polish some stuff and fix our go outs, directed retrieve, and articles and then we'll be trial ready! Earlier this week I "broke" her recall by doing too many drops in one direction to the point where she determined that the crease in the matting was where she needed to down every time I called her. I think that we fixed it, but her creeping is back, so I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board. We've been neglecting broad jump and figure eight training, but the rest of our Novice and Open excersises are lookin good. Moving stand and signals are OK, she can do discrimination with two articles at a time, and she will do directed jumping if she is placed behind the jumps. Go Outs are steadily improving, and I don't think that they'll be a problem.
Directed retrieve, on the other hand, is a nightmare. Zoe just grabs the glove and throws it at me. I'm going to have to build some serious value for keeping hold of the glove, and then I might practice the directed part with dumbells at first. I have some time, we won't start in Novice until the spring. Our first of many scheduled run throughs is in a few weeks, and I'm thinking that I'll enter her in both Novice and Open just to see how it goes. It's in a building that she is really happy and comfortable working in so I'm predicting good results!
Boomer is coming along slowly, we work best together when our sessions are REALLY short, so we've been perfecting heeling, learning finishes, and reinforcing his glorious fronts. This weekend I'm going to resume his 2X2's and his teeter re-training in the hopes that he can start accompanying Zoe and I when we go trialing. Hopefully he and I can bond a little bit in December when we spend the weekend at the Crown Classic, my absolute favorite show. I'm a little bummed that I won't be trialing there this year, but it was the right descision not to enter Zoe, she would have been too stressy. Instead, Boomer and I will hang out, bar set for agility, study some obedience competitors (and judges), and hang out around the breed rings to pick up some pointers for 4-H next year. It'd also be really nice if I could find a handler that needs an assistant or kennel help, i could really use an enjoyable job. And the shopping is always a plus :) I'd like to find some articles, a dumbell for Boomer, and some books to add to my growing collection.
I've also been spending lots of time with Banner, the lovely mini horse that I'm trianing/leasing for the 4-H year. He hasn't always been treated well and it's going to be tons of work, but he will be really nice when I'm done with him. He just spent three weeks with an Amish trainer, and later today we're going to put him in the cart for the first time since he came home. Fingers crossed!
Soo...pictures of Banner and the dogs to be posted later this week!
