I haven't had a lot of days off lately. Could anything be funner than to hang out with your 3 best friends on a sunny day off? And pretending you don't have to go home and clean the bathroom and do laundry and vacuum?
Today when we practiced, we had some new distractions. Ice on the morning grass, and 3 deer that strolled right up to Kathleen's agility field. One for each dog. One dog, a Very GOOD dog named Otterpop, stayed put, and didn't go get hers. I think this is due to our Master Plan of me teaching her to read my mind so as to start getting more gambles and I guess she could read all the bad words going through my mind when the other dogs took off and thought better of it. Unless she actually just heard the bad words coming out my mouth and thought better of it. One dog, a usually much better behaved dog named Ruby, ran after hers and but came running right back in when I called her using You Are In Really Big Trouble Young Lady Voice. Ruby has a conscience. And one VERY NAUGHTY dog that could be no one else but Gustavo, totally blew me off and tried his best to figure out how to run out the fence to go after everybody's deer and I had to go catch him.
Oh Gustavo. Someday. Every day, Gustavo teaches me to be a better trainer. This is the zen way of looking at it. The non zen way is to remember that the cursing always stops the second I catch him because really, have you ever seen anything cuter than Gustavo?
We're not doing a whole lot of agility this month. Otterpop and Ruby certainly can use a break, help preserve their legs. Gustavo, he'll practice a bit, but mostly agility lite. Work on tricks, work on focusing, and learning actual distance skills. Not just relying on his out of control, far away from me, rocket propulsion to get the Master's Gambles. Not running away after deer. I guess it's not really work. It's pretty fun. Except the part where I'm cursing because of the deer. Everyone needs to stay in just enough shape for the fun Team Trial in December. Gustavo's first time on a DAM team. Lord have mercy on us now. It's in Santa Rosa where there are no deer but where Otterpop once slammed on her brakes because of the hamburger cart right outside the ring. This trial even has a wacky nighttime class that Ruby can crash through bars in! And in 2 weeks, we are going to a seminar with Sylvia Trkman seminar, my super waify agility hero!
2 comments:
I hope you blog about all the wisdom you learn at the Trkman seminar. I seriously considered driving up from San Diego to audit it, but decided I could not take that much time off work.
I can't wait! I can only go to one day of the seminar, but it should be super interesting to meet her and hear what she has to say. I'm lucky Ashely put it together and it's only an hour away from my house, and one of the days was on my day off!
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