Friday's seminar with Ron Watson and Apryl Lea - We had a great time. It was really cool to have disc dog training in a format that I'm used to learning dog stuff. Up till now so much of disc dog training has been "figure it out yourself". I find it kind of nice to have someone actually talk about in depth foundation training, etc. Of course coming from an agility background that's what I'm used to so it makes sense that part of the seminar would appeal to me. Jack isn't the best student in the world (teachers often are not) but he enjoyed it very much and we both learned a lot. Jack worked Tali in the seminar and I worked Max. I did play with Groovy during down time and she did quite well. Very focused on me and the disc and considering I was playing in a sheep pasture filled with sheep treats I was pretty happy about that!
Exciting side note!!! In a change of events... Maximo is staying! Mom had a change of heart the Thursday before we left for Orlando. She wants to give it a go with Max. They are going to fence in their yard which should help get him some exercise without him having to be leash walked for it. Hopefully this works out well for them, for Max and for us too. It's very exciting to see Jack work frisbee with Max. It'll take a while for them to become competitive for various reasons 1) he doesn't live with us and they only get to work together 2-3 days per week 2) Max has some foundation stuff to learn (like "drop") but he gets better every session. Someday though I think they will be a very competitive team.
Challenge/Quad: Max did OK with me in toss n fetch. While he is a freestyle maniac he loses focus in distracting environments in toss n fetch. Nothing that can't be overcome and he was getting better as the weekend progressed. I played with Max in the quad. We don't really have any timing down so we didn't do all that well but we did get a 34 yard catch and that isn't too bad. He was a good boy all weekend and the girls (Tali, Jam and Groovy) ended up loving him by the time the weekend was over.
Groovy - Groovy did great on Friday as I mentioned. I didn't work her in the seminar as I thought it'd be too much on her not to mention she isn't really old enough to be doing a lot of the disc dog stuff. She did do great the times I did play with her. Her focus and drive are really coming along nicely. We learned several tidbits at the seminar that will help us in our training with her and I'm already seeing a difference in her since then. Groovy also did great at the hotel (minus a few minus of slipping her leash and not wanting to come back - giving me a heart attack because she went both near a pond - think gator bait - and near a road at 10pm at night). She slept well, she did well with the hallways, elevators, strangers with just a few woofs here or there. Groovy did not do well at the competition site however. Saturday morning she got out of the car all happy and seemed quite normal walking over to the tent. A couple of hours later I went to get her out of the crate to walk her and have her meet my aunt who came to watch. She was huddling in the back corner shaking. Not good and I have no idea what set her off as her crate was covered and it was Jack on the sound system. It might have been a barking dog in the next tent but who knows. She had done so well at the Canis Majors in November I thought we had made it over this hurdle but I guess it's 2 steps forward 1 step back... or maybe 1 step forwards and 2 steps back some days. After I did get her out of the crate I let her spend the rest of the day crated in the car which she was much happier about. When I walked her I kept her away from the crowd and she did fine. She even played some frisbee with me later that night as Jack was helping pack up the club stuff. I was impressed again with her drive and focus - but mind you - there were maybe only 15 people left and there were quite a ways away - but you got to start somewhere. Interestingly enough she was "normal" back at the hotel that night. Sunday we didn't even get her out much - again she was crated in the car and was very happy about that. We just walked her a time or two and kept her at a distance. This weekend we have a competition that's local. I'm going to bring her but I'm going to keep her crated in the car and I plan to make a point of walking her, rewarding for confidence and playing disc as close to the competition as she is comfortable. We'll see what happens. She really is at the age where aussies generally get spooky about stuff... the "problem" with Groovy is that she's been spooky on and off since she was 11 weeks old. Last weekend aside I think we are making progress and I really see her drive for the disc increasing every week so I'm sure that will help when we can play in some of these places that scare her.
Speaking of drive increasing... I played disc with her Monday night. Jack usually gets home first and gets to play disc with her on the weekdays. Well he had to work late so I got home first. I didn't feel well and was missing her agility class so I made a point to at least get her out for a few minutes to get the beans out. WOW! We had an awesome session! Here's a pic of her from Sunday - she turned 11 months old on Tuesday!
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