Since the trial last weekend I have traveled to several different fields to work, I worked outside the yard during a local class doing tricks with Cricket helping her use her brain while other dogs were running-I went in and just did the contacts while the students in the class were walking their course, THANKS DEANNA (the instructor) for being so accommodating. We have once again found our contacts which makes me very happy ;-).
Yesterday for the first time in a LONG time I brought all three border collies The Lizard, Breezie and Cricket to a fun run. It is so much easier to throw just Cricket in the car and take off and so much easier to just worry about her. Breezie seems to be feeling good lately and Lizzie has been full of it because she is pretty submissive around the other girls-they sort of end up crowding her out at times, Lizzie needs more opportunities to feel like she is working.
Three border collie girls, all trained by the same person, living in the same house, but boy are they different to train. Yesterday running all of them one after another, wow, it really hit me how different they are from each other.
First up was the Lizard and when you run Lizzie she is a very stressy dog and you have to have a constant feedback loop. I have to keep giving her feedback about how she is doing and then reading her feedback to me, there has to be an intense connection. When I run Liz I have to have what I want to do all worked out and feel very confident. Any sort of confusion on my part and Lizzie is gone and checks out mentally. After she gets into the groove then she will start operating without needing the constant feedback but ya gotta wait until she makes the move and starts operating on her own with agility and not operating on her own by running off, LOL. Ya gotta be in it 100% to run the little Lizard. She gets so happy and proud when she completes a course-that makes it totally worth it.
Breeze is totally into my movement -for the good and the bad. I forgot she just does not send and no matter how committed she looks to a tunnel or a jump, if I do not keep my commitment and I start to move to the next thing, I can totally pull her off the obstacle. It is cool if I need to keep her away from a trap but I had not run her in awhile and boy I had forgot-our first run I kept pulling her off things, whoops!. It would be a fun experiment to do some Silvia Trkman Cik/Cap work with her to see how much that would increase her obstacle focus. After a couple of months off and with the excitement of the other dogs Breeze was a nut and very naughty with her start line and for the first time in her life she was running up to the judge person jumping on her and asking for pets-so unlike little Breezie!!!
Then there was Cricket,..... boy running the other dogs made me realize how much we are starting to gel with each other. I can send her to obstacles which makes it so much easier and she still listens to my movement although she is getting more excited so she is starting to figure she can run on her own if she sees an obstacle she really likes, LOL. The dogs at the fun run were not dogs that were sending my dogs over the top but any dog doing agility gets Cricket excited so with that level of excitement she did good with her contacts yesterday and kept all her bars up at 20inches.
I think I get a gold star because I had to run Lizzie, then there was one other dog running, then Breeze and Cricket back to back. It was about 85 degrees and a bit hot, ACTUALLY REALLY HOT, and I am a pretty slow person so running three dogs one after another was a real workout for me and I am pretty surprised I did not just drop but it felt good, I felt like I deserved a click/treat for running them all and for keeping my head and keeping in my thinking brain and using all my mental management skills to keep calm and work at giving each dog what they needed. Whooo hoooo yea me! hahahahahaha.