Countdown - 3 Days!

Truth be told, I don't do too many other things in my life aside from working, and my dog Sealy is my main outlet for NOT working!    There are the daily walks with her, both in the woods in the morning and late evening, and in the afternoon in the neighborhood and dog run.  (In her company the amount of human interaction for me increases ten-fold.)  I love to watch her run and gambol, and her sheer joy exuberance in the world is a model for me to emulate.  She's a happy, happy, dog - good for Monique-as-a-Melancholy-Jaques to be around.   I find working with Sealy on these obediences exercises fun, and even though we're not as "ready" for the match on Saturday as I'd hoped to be, knowing there would be intermittent reports on this blog of our progress helped me train more than I likely would have otherwise.  

Sealy's recall has always been fast, like a rocket, but in the last few days she's begun to stop herself by rebounding off me at the end (instead of sitting in front).  Part of this is that as I've increased the distance, and the time before I call her (and distractions) she's gotten herself rather wound up - it's hard for her to wait to start with, and now the release for her of finally being called by me results in her imitating a popping champagne cork.   First I tried adding back in the sit command (she's so fast it's "Sealy, Come! Sit!!!"   at 30 feet), and then  I went back to shorter distances (and on-lead) so she can't get up much speed and can be right more often.  Handler error here - I tried to do too much too soon.

My four goals from nine days ago were:  automatic sits when heeling, straight fronts on the recall, stand, and fading my feet from finish.  While there's been progress on all of them, the two that "most improved" are the stand and the finish.  Based on what I've watched Novice trials online on YouTube, I still think she could qualify on each excercise.  This is amazing to me - the scoring seem to be far higher than it was years ago (15? or so) , the last time I did this, when I was working with Suki. 

Dear, sweet Suki... this is her near the end of her life, at about age 14.   And let's not forget Leika, either, the dog before Suki and my first dog.