I miss everyone and am going to need to sit down with a nice glass of Crystal Light this afternoon and catch up on everyones blogs ;-(.
ANYHOW I went to sign on to the blog and WHAT HAPPENED???? I did not recognize anything about how it looked, I couldn't figure out how to sign in or write a post, seriously does everything have to change the second I turn my back? LOL. Wasn't someone assigned to make sure big changes like this did not happen while I was absent? Apparently not!
My kids have been especially charming lately, and have been hanging around me more perhaps because we have been doing the driving lessons with my older teenager. She is doing marvelously but I have to admit there have been several times that I am grabbing the door and I have yelled a few times which I am pretty sure is not helpful-but all in all I am proud of how I am doing teaching my daughter and I am proud of how she is doing driving.
My younger daughter has a lot of friends texting her because of swim team an she has been getting TONS of chain texts telling her she has to forward it to X number of friends or some horrible fate will befall her, all the people who have not responded have been found dead in a toilet in ten days so BEWARE!. Of course my daughter dutifully sends the texts to the prescribed number of people, LOL, and was even sending me a fair amount of them. I talked to her about how there was really no risk and did she really believe in ten days she would drop dead? She says well, it does not make a lot of sense but you never know....LOL, so when I saw this sign on facebook it was too funny not to share.
ON LEARNING CONTACTS:
So I figure none of this will be new to most of you, but figured it would be fun to post a few links to places where you can get a really fantastic education or some help with learning contacts!!! I like to believe there are always choices and alternatives. If you do not have classes in your area that meet your needs, or perhaps courses you would like to take are just way too expensive for you, then get creative and find what you need, you might even find something that suits your needs much better, ya never know.
With the internet it seems every day there are just more options. I just am going to put a few links so you can check out a few programs, but there are others out there, and if anyone knows another good internet class it would be cool to share ;-).
DAWN WEAVER- a name a lot of you might not know but she has been doing some seminars out here on the west coast and is very popular in her seminars. Dawn is wildly successful in agility. She has a method that looks very intriguing. I have heard her method is very similar to a much more expensive course-but I don't know that for a fact.... For running contacts she has a module system, you get a lesson plan and access to a video and work for a month, then you submit a video for DAWN TO REVIEW-yep, real live feedback on how YOU are doing. I believe there are seven modules plus the stopped contact module and these cover all the contacts.
The stopped contacts have their own little module and most of the training is done without equipment at your home to avoid any chance of messing up your training on the actual contact.http://www.dawnweaveragility.com/running-contacts-tuition
DAISY PEEL- has a course where you are going to get Daisy herself looking at your work/videos --you complete a lesson and submit a video and she gives you feed back and help. She has the dog driving to a manners minder for her running contacts and offers a course to increase drive to the manners minder you can take before the running contacts class. Daisy also has a variety of different classes. http://www.daisypeel.com/
SILVIA TRKMAN- of course Silvia is one of my favorites and I have taken a bunch of her classes. I feel like with the puppy class and the foundation class I got great info on teaching stopped contacts, body awareness, keeping the dog engaged and it was great fun. Her stopped contacts use games and a box or board away from the contacts to teach the 2020 behavior. There is TONS of body awareness and strengthening done with tricks. Silvia looks at and comments on the videos students submit -it feels like you are indeed one of her students. I have not taken the running contacts course, but know a lot of people that have. http://www.lolabuland.com/