Boy am I sore!

I am competing in a 3 day AKC trial this weekend in Castle Rock, Colorado and I had a "first" happen to me :-) In all of my years of competing I have never taken a full on digger while I was running a course!

What is a digger, in simple terms, I fell, hard! Of course it was ultimately very funny but I must admit I am feeling it today! 

Wally and I were having a great run when I caught my toe in the dirt as I was running him off of the dog walk and even though I tried very, very hard to stay upright it was just not to be! 

The very bad news is that Wally and I had a clean run going and because my wonderful dog was worried about his handler and came back to see that I was alright we incurred a refusal, however, I did get up and finish the course without further incident or additional course faults! PLease note that Wally did indeed have a spectacular running dog walk, as he did today in his standard class. His contacts really are coming along famously :-)

Here you will see the body and ego bruising run as well as his standard run today that I just needed to include to make me feel better!

Vandal and SoBe came along to the trial as well, but of course SoBe was restricted to the car a a couple of 5 minute walks each day. She did get a massage today though and she was very happy about that!

Vandal was a very good boy and of course once again got to meet bunches of new people and see lots of new things, all of which he just took in stride. He did get to go over to the park with his brother Amp and do some restrained recalls, puppy races and some focus work with toys and treats. It is going to be great fun to watch the pups grow up together!

I am starting to do so many things with Vandal that I am having trouble remembering them all to put on the list :-) Let's see, tons of "drive" work, restrained recalls and chase games every chance we get, name recognition work with distractions. Vandal knows his name VERY well but is not quite sure that it matters when there is anything to look at.

We played with this today a great deal at the park with brother Amp, who by the way is awesome at responding to his name even with minor distractions! 

Vandal was realizing the value of looking at mommy when she says his name with the help of Great Bait liver treats :-)

One of the things I love so much about these pups is their ability to tune out all distractions when they are "on the toy" or, while already offering behaviors before the distractions enter the picture.

Vandal is a toy and tugging maniac and I am doing everything in my power to keep his toy drive on "overdrive"!

We do a lot of racing each other to the toy, winner gets the toy :-) It seriously encourages Vandal to move it or lose it! 

We are also continuing our perch work and he is so cute when he sort of dances around the stool with his front feet securely on the stool/perch and his hind feet on the floor.

The game came is very popular as he gets to chase and gets his toy, you can't go wrong there!

Vandal is learning Heel and side as well as his basic obedience positions of sit and down. We continue to work on the verbal release and have started his 2on/2off training on the travel plank. Vandal is also running his 12' plank at a slight incline and he has fortunately gotten over his momentary teeter phobia and we are working on bouncing on and off of the low teeter plank as well.

He has been through the short chute and seen 12" spaced channel weaves as well. Please keep in mind all of these obstacles are presented with play and are not intended to be finished product performances, just introductions to the various pieces of equipment. Never lose sight of the fact that agility is first and foremost structured play!

Tomorrow is another day of competition and my goals are to have a great time with Wally and stay on my feet!

SoBe and Vandal had to have their pictures included today, they just wanted to say HI!