The roof is no longer retractable!

Look, it has a roof!! :-) And a beautiful floor! The restoration company actually used a truck mounted vaccuum and along with the vac job they also shampooed the carpet. Truthfully it has not looked this good in a long while. Now I can be even more anal about my floor :-).

There is one pretty deep gash in one section but for the most part the flooring came away unscathed I am very happy to report.

Geoff and I got all of the equipment back in and I was actually training inside my building last night and this morning, I sure have missed it.

Riesen update, she came through the surgery just fine but is pretty sore at this point. Julie is of course taking beyond expert care of her, my reccomendation is that anyone dog or animal that needs TLC plan an extended stay at Auntie Julies place there is no better care anywhere!

They did have to take 3 full mammary glands and the incision is pretty major but she is her tail wagging, happy smiling self from all reports.

Now we wait for the pathology report, which I continue to believe will be good news.

So, let's talk about contacts, again! I took the youngsters down to the new and improved building last night and worked on contacts. Interestingly enough if you were to ask me right now, let's pretend you have, would you teach running contacts to SoBe or 2on/2off, I would answer 2 on/2 off :-) If you were to ask me the same question about Merger the answer would be running! 

This is exactly opposite of what I would have said a month or 2 ago. Why the switcheroo you ask?

Well, it does seem odd that I would even consider a running contact on a dog that is almost 23" tall, and equally silly to think about stopping a barely 18" dog who has to jump 22". 

The rationale is attitude and that whole thinker/doer thing.

SoBe is so completely all about speed that she has virtually no self preservation instinct and honestly not a lot of team spirit. SoBe knows that there is no "I" in team but has made a point of noticing that there is a "me" in team :-). BTW, I find this incredibly fun and training little miss SoBe is always a blast so if she can just refrain from injuring herself it is going to be a thrill ride from start to finish training her!

In training she has a spectacular 2 on/2 off dog walk and teeter, however, these same behaviors have been quite elusive in the trial environment. SoBe has a lovely running A-Frame that seems to morph a bit at the trials as well, this of course got me thinking. If she is allowed to run her A-Frame and has a balls to the wall overall attitude does this not potentially bleed into the dog walk and teeter performance values?

I believe it does, and, I also believe that there is going to have to be very clear and specific criteria that leaves no room for alternate interpretation for me to get the level of consistency I am looking for in competition. It is for these reasons that I am going to shape a 2 on/2 off A-frame as well. The little speed demon is plenty fast enough to control herself during the process of negotiating her contacts and still kick butt. What I am not so sure she is capable of is the impulse control that is necessary on the dog walk and teeter if she is allowed to run the A-frame. Time will tell, of course, but at present it makes sense to me.

Merger is a thinker and he most certainly is a team player, not so much a team captain but a great player! The good news is that we are not looking for a new captain 'cause that job is filled by me.

It is his great attitude and desire to please, along with how he is performing the contacts right now that leads me to believe that we may have running contacts in our future. I am still practicing his 2 on/2 off position and he is still fantastic at it, but, we just may not need it. Even though he has an immense stride he has been naturally 2 hitting his A-frame and adding strides on the dog walk to take him all the way through the yellow, YEA!!!

I am trying to be realistic about this and he may also end up stopping on the end of his contacts, there is still time to decide, however, the decision for SoBe has been made, she will be stopping!