Friday evening I took off from work about an hour early and Jack, Tali, Groovy and I headed up to Chris' house to have Chris, Jack and Kota practice pairs. Tali and Groovy both got to practice as well and did well. Groovy was pretty confident (for her), she willingly got out of the car (sometimes even that is a struggle), walked around a bit, was very cautious of Mike and Julie but functional and she even practiced some (just so long as the discs went nowhere near Mike). After practice we went to Chris' next door neighbors how for folks to cool off in the pool (Chris is long term house sitting). Tali let me put her in but would get right back out. I didn't try it with Groovy cause scary Mike was in the pool! :) She did well with the other dogs running around the pool area and although nervous handled herself well. After the pool we put the dogs back in the car and grilled out and hung out for a while till it was time to head back home. Got some neat pics of an Osprey that flew by with a fish in it's claws... here's one.
Saturday AM Groovy and I went herding at Cindy's. We split the lesson with Sal and Tex. It was HOT but Groovy did really well. She has the proud title of being the first student dog to ever work Cindy's ram! :) And said ram (as well as 1 other ram and 3 wethers) didn't give her a bit of trouble (apparently those aren't the easiest kind of sheep to work). I got lucky and didn't have to work Groovy - Cindy did it all (thank goodness as the ram head butted her once). It is much more enjoyable to watch my dog work than me be confused about what the heck to do but I know I have to get in there and learn so we can get ready for the ASCA trial in November. Groovy had no fear at all working those sheep and to prove that she's becoming a good little stock dog she even voluntarily jumped in the stock tank to cool off! That was a first.
From herding we rushed back home, packed up and headed down towards south Florida to hang out with our friends Jason and Andrea. We had been planning to do a big disc practice day here at the house for CFDDC members on our new field but the tractor STILL isn't working so those plans just weren't working out. As an alternative Andrea suggested we come down there sometime so we took her up on it. It was a good little trip for several reasons. 1) It was a good test drive to see how Groovy might do on the upcoming road trip to Illinois and Michigan. 2) It was fun to jam with some of the south Florida disc dog crowd. 3) It was a good way to get to know Jason and Andrea better and 4) they have an AWESOME pizza place by their house with awesome chicken parmesan pizza. I must have some more of that some day!
Saturday evening some friends of Andrea and Jason's were there and our friend Donna came for a bit as well to check out a dog that the Rigler's are fostering. Everyone played with their dogs getting tips and hints from everyone else. Jack showed the Rigler's some different tosses and we all talked about routines and such. It was pretty cool. Groovy did awesome! She came out of the car and played right away. Didn't care about the people there at all! Tali was kinda slow and pokey but it was HOT. Later on we had that awesome pizza and watched a movie.
Sunday AM we ate breakfast and headed out to Jam some more. Their friend Amanda joined us as well. Interestingly enough Groovy had more trouble with this small crowd than the larger one the day before. She also had a big problem with Jason and was barking at him a lot. We tried something new and put the girls in an expen (Groovy, Tali and Jam came along for this little trip) instead of their fold up crates. This gave Jason the opportunity to toss Groovy treats from a distance and slowly work his way closer. In the end he was petting her and feeding her treats from his hand! BONUS! She played really well and Andrea and Jason helped Jack work on his disc placement for back vaults. Groovy has been learning vault foundations for the past few weeks and had been doing takes from me and from Jack but we hadn't progressed to an actual toss yet. Sunday the first vault toss Jack tried with her she caught and it was beautiful! Here's a pic below... nothing great in terms of a pic but still cool that I got her first one on "film"!
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| Groovy has good hops! |
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| The girls watching Jack play with Moxie |
(Recognize anything in this pic Sarah? Remind me to give it to you when you drop off or pick up the dogs this weekend.)
It was an exhausting weekend but a great one! Groovy made some real progress and that was the best part! This weekend coming up should be low key - or will hopefully be low key. I'm dog sitting Trinity and Java Duke all weekend and herding on Sat. AM with Groovy but other than that it should be a chilled out weekend.
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