Mum, Gracie and I had practice last night. It was hotter than usual, so Mum wanted to work on my heat endurance - getting me to run just as fast as usual even though it's hot. It worked - with those special treats she brought, ymmmmm......
We worked on gambles and discriminations - those are our challenges right now. Got a few good tips from trainer J, which helped a lot. Now it's just getting Mum used to guiding me correctly.
I have to say that Mum really gets the biggest kick out of me working away from her - in the gamble, or just throughout a run. After a year of being a velcro dog (and making Mum run her butt off), I'm finally confident enough to be more independent. And she LOVES it! Not only because it saves her breath; but because she can see how much I am enjoying it. Really makes her smile - and I love to make her smile.
Gracie did pretty well last night. Since it was hot, Mum wasn't as tolerant as she could have been with Gracie - which instantly shuts Gracie down. So Mum changed her attitude, and Gracie did great - found a tunnel entrance on her own, did her weaves really well, did an 'out' to another tunnel, made all her contacts - and only ran off a couple of times, not very far and came back to Mum.
Right now we are just working on getting Gracie a lot of ring time - to get her totally focused on agility in the ring and not all the other dogs and people. She's such a social butterfly, which we love about her - but it isn't always good in the agility ring! But we'll keep at it.
Off to the USDAA trial this weekend at the training center - some runs will be inside and some outside. Mum thinks we'll just run in the Masters Gamblers and see what happens. If we Q, I'll just move up, if not we may go back to Advanced Gamblers at the next trial.
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